Drama

Drama at university level is both a practical and intellectual discipline, developing your ability to make, perform, and think critically about theatre and performance. It asks how dramatic works are constructed and what effects they create, how performance practices vary across cultures and historical periods, and what theatre can do that other art forms cannot. Alongside this critical and historical engagement, you develop your own creative and practical skills, making work, directing, devising, designing, and performing within a programme that takes practice seriously as a form of inquiry.

At the University of Exeter, this three-year full-time programme offers an environment where academic and practical challenge combine, creating new work and developing research that has led generations of students to develop their own skills and perspectives. Exeter has significant research strengths in theatre history, performance studies, and practice-as-research, and you will benefit from being taught by practitioners and scholars active in these fields. The programme includes a sandwich year, a year abroad, and work placement, giving you professional and international experience alongside the academic and practical formation.

Graduates from drama programmes go on to careers in professional performance, directing, theatre-making, community arts, drama education, arts administration, stage management, dramaturgy, and the broader creative industries. Many develop portfolio careers that combine performance, education, and creative production. The critical thinking, communication, and collaborative skills that drama develops are also valued across many professional contexts outside the arts.

Further study at postgraduate level in drama, theatre studies, or performance is available for those who wish to develop their practice or move into research.