Acting and Performance

Acting and performance as a degree programme is built around the belief that performers learn best by making, doing and reflecting on their work rather than by studying it from a distance. This part-time programme at the University of Huddersfield is specifically designed for those who want to create their own performances and workshops through acting or directing, giving students a production-based training that develops practical skills alongside the creative and critical thinking that professional performance work requires.

The programme includes a sandwich year and work placements, providing structured opportunities to develop professional experience alongside your academic and performance training. Huddersfield's approach emphasises student ownership of the creative process: you will develop projects, devise original work, work with scripts, direct and perform, building the portfolio of practical experience and creative work that professional careers in theatre, applied performance and community arts require. The part-time mode makes the degree accessible to those who are already working in performance or related fields, or who have other commitments alongside their training.

Acting and performance develops skills that are both discipline-specific and broadly transferable: communication, presence, collaboration, creative problem-solving and the ability to take direction and adapt your work in response to feedback are all central to performance training and valuable in many professional contexts. The programme develops performers who are also thinkers about performance, equipped to understand and articulate what they are doing and why.

Graduates go on to work in professional theatre, community and applied theatre, arts education, youth theatre, workshop facilitation, television and film, and many of the creative industries that value performative and communicative skill. Further study in performance practice, applied theatre, drama education or devised performance is also a common route for those seeking to deepen or specialise their practice.