PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT - 2025/6

Module Overview

This module enables students to work collaboratively on the research, rehearsal and making of inclusive theatre for performance to specific audiences, integrating principles and skills from across the programme.

Students engage with three fully realised performance projects, one per Teaching Block, continuing to interrogate the landscape of collaboration, artistic autonomy and self-made work for a specific audience.

In Teaching Block 1 students work collaboratively to create an Applied Theatre project with a chosen community group. The project should be a series of practical workshops that respond to the needs and interests of their participants.

In Teaching Block 2 students will work on a solo piece of political performance Student are tasked with documenting their solo outcome which they must present to peers and staff as part of an exhibition. This may consist of (but not limited to) an arts installation, a workshop, a live or recorded performance etc.

In Teaching Block 3 students will work on a public production at a performance space at GSA. This project will be directed by a professional creative.

Module provider

Guildford School of Acting

Module Leader

TUNSTALL Darren (GSA)

Number of Credits: 30

ECTS Credits: 15

Framework: FHEQ Level 6

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 various workshops, including sessions with external guest speakers, building on structured materials provided via the VLE that the students will engage with independently.

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.

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• Written assessment (Personal Professional Profile Portfolio)

Typically to be handed in at the end of teaching block 2

• Presentation assessment (Professional Pitch)

20 minutes or equivalent. Typically to be handed in during teaching block 3

Formative assessment

Continuous formative assessment occurs in 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

These are assessments that provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate and receive feedback from teachers, from peers and of self as directed. 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

• This module aims to provide the student with the opportunity to build upon their experiences gained previously in the programme and further develop the professional skills required in the creative industries, addressing the student's chosen and/or aspirational career path, working to the following programme aims:
• To train and develop practitioners with high order creative skills in a broad range of artistic situations
• To facilitate students' independent learning, self-management and creative entrepreneurship
• 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:
• Enable independent, creative and confident engagement with key entrepreneurial concepts, processes, companies and practices globally
• Engage students through blended and flipped learning
• Enable the articulate, inclusive and reflective practitioner

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: APP3002

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 can develop their digital skills and literacy throughout the module. Students are encouraged to use digital resources (Mac Labs and software) as part of their creative process. 

 Global and Cultural Capabilities 

Module 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 this, students will be introduced to diverse perspectives, via engagement with their chosen communities. 

 Employability 

Students directly gain skills and experience in performance skills, 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.