School of Creative Arts, Film and Media (SCAFM)

Drama

Drama at Portsmouth focuses on artistic creativity in the theatrical space. The course offers a core strand that traces the history of theatrical performance from Classical Greece and Rome through to present day. You will encounter and practice the methodologies of key practitioners, such as Stanislavski, Brecht, Artaud, Grotowski and Brook. 

Music Theatre

The music theatre strand will run throughout your degree, introducing you to the history of music theatre, investigating its treatment as an art form and developing key skills in the creation of new work. You will get the opportunity to perform both new and existing works, so that your own writing skills can benefit from an understanding and appreciation of existing productions. In the final year, your dissertation may be a partly practical project, perhaps creating and performing a piece of original music theatre.

Theatre in the Community

Theatre in the Community explores the roots and influences of theatre as a popular and political form. If you select this option, you will engage with methods of expression such as the body and maskwork and explore ways in which theatre may be used that are not primarily concerned with entertainment.

By the end of a degree, you will have the opportunity to take work out into the community, working alongside practitioners and local groups to use theatre in education, hospitals, prisons, museums and other public and community environments.

Theatre Criticism and Philosophy

The critical and theoretical approach to theatre is provided through a more academic study of philosophy, texts and performance. You will be introduced to critical, research and analytical skills and will encounter ways in which theatre interacts with culture and society, particularly in the study of identity politics.

Our Department

As a Drama student you may also become involved with the University Choir, Orchestra, Big Band and Drama Music Society, all of which perform regularly at public venues, recently including the King's Theatre, the New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth Cathedral, the Wiltshire Studios and various local churches and arts centres.

In addition, students run their own society, the Show Committee, which supports and nurtures the talent of its members in an un-assessed, extra-curricular environment. We benefit from a fully workable studio theatre with flexible seating accommodating an audience of up to 80 people; rehearsal facilities including a mirrored dance space; and several music practice rooms equipped with pianos.

We house the Centre for Music Theatre, which hosted the International Conference 'Song, Stage and Screen' in 2006 and which is home to the international journal studies in Musical Theatre. We are also home to the Sixty Second Film Festival, which toured internationally in 2004, and which hosted the symposium 'Artists, Curators and Screen' in 2006.

Recent and forthcoming contributors to the department include Edward Bond, Mark Ravenhill, David Edgar, Sebastian Peake, Malcolm Le Grice, Ian Helliwell, Fecund Theatre Company, Solent People's Theatre, and Portsmouth Composers' Alliance.