THEATRE MAKING - 2025/6

Module Overview

This module enables students to consider theatre making approaches in a variety of contexts.

These may include, but are not limited to schools, small scale theatre, site specific theatre, fringe theatre, community groups, professional training, education outreach activities and online learning, across diverse global communities.

Through guided and independent case studies, students will explore a range of innovative and established practices as well as working alongside guest artists.

 

Module provider

Guildford School of Acting

Module Leader

SHAUGHNESSY Robert (GSA)

Number of Credits: 30

ECTS Credits: 15

Framework: FHEQ Level 5

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Year long

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

N/A

Module content

Each teaching block, students will attend seminars building on structured materials provided via the VLE that the students will engage with independently beforehand.

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate practical evidence of a developing methodology as a creative practitioner.

The summative assessment for this module consists of:

• Practical Demonstration


• Written Reflective Evaluation equivalent to 1500 words – Portfolio

Formative assessment
Continuous formative assessment occurs in every class and students will be guided to understand and recognise formative verbal feedback in addition to formal written feedback as essential to their development and learning journey.

Feedback
Students receive informal and formal verbal and written feedback and also benefit from personal tutorials/feedback panels where this feedback can be discussed after reflection and grading has taken place. Formal feedback will be published via SurreyLearn by a published date within three teaching weeks.

Module aims

• To train and develop practitioners with high order creative skills in a broad range of artistic situations
• To enable engagement with and critical understanding of context, style, genre and idiom in the practice of contemporary theatre globally
• To support students who can contribute creatively, innovatively, inclusively and intelligently to their chosen professional field

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

• Encourage students to engage and understand a variety of approaches to theatre making


• Equip students with the knowledge of different modes of theatre making that can be embedded in their own artistic practice.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: APP2002

Other information

Guildford School of Acting is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills, and capabilities in the following areas:

Digital Capabilities

Students develop their digital skills and literacy throughout the module. They are introduced to the virtual learning environment and required to make use of online resources including online research, engagement with discussion forums, creation and submission of digital work (video, written) for formative and summative assessment.

Global and Cultural Capabilities

Programme content encourages students to engage and work within a range of different social, economic and cultural contexts. They will examine their positionality in relation to a mixture of sites and settings through appropriate scholarship.

Programme content incorporates perspectives and practices from a range of cultures; through conversations around culture, appreciation, and appropriation students are encouraged to diversify their knowledge and reflect on different experiences; through critical engagement students are encouraged to examine and debate topics in relation to global and cultural capabilities, further developing students’ sustainable performance practice.

Employability

Students directly gain skills and experience in theatre practice, through engagement with industry practitioners, and in the professional environment equipping them for careers in the creative field. 

Resourcefulness and Resilience

Students are guided to develop the ability to reflect, evaluate, adapt, and respond effectively to new ideas, unforeseen circumstances and challenges throughout the programme and particularly in their development of community engagement skills, negotiation, and flexibility. They also develop their resilience through the continuous integration of self-reflective assessment.

Sustainability

Throughout the programme students are encouraged to consider how they can apply their in-class learning to the professional creative field.  This includes the deconstructing established anglosphere framing of historical theatre practices, and the strengthening of key performance skills and reflective practice which supports resilience and wellbeing. This course promotes enterprise and entrepreneurship as well as collaborative thinking. These values help students to imagine their own models for social sustainability within the applied and contemporary theatre industry. Students will be nurtured as future leaders in sustainability thinking and supported to take informed decisions and responsible actions that promote the wellbeing of present and future generations.

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.