MA Playwriting 12 months Postgraduate Programme By The University of Manchester |TopUniversities
Subject Ranking

# 51-100QS Subject Rankings

Programme Duration

12 monthsProgramme duration

Main Subject Area

Performing ArtsMain Subject Area

Programme overview

Main Subject

Performing Arts

Degree

MA

Study Level

Masters

The MA Playwriting course is an intensive one-year programme designed to provide a genuine gateway into a writing career in the theatre and performance industries. It is taught by practitioners and is vocationally-oriented and industry-focused. Students will work with leading industry practitioners to develop their playwriting, pitching and dramaturgical skills. Students will learn about and develop skills in writing for performance across a diverse range of contexts, genres and themes. By the end of the course, students will have developed at least one full-length stage play, a collection of one-act dramas, a full-length festival play and at least one play that adapts elements of a classic text to engage with a contemporary context. In Semester 1, students will study the basics of playwriting as a craft, focusing on form and structure. This will include engaging with plays in textual form and in live performance, and the study of plot/story, character, genre, scene development, monologue and dialogue, dramatic action, beginnings, endings, features of staging and audience relationship. Students will study a diverse range of new and historical works, including historical plays that have brought about innovations in dramatic form and structure, as well as new writing staged in Britain and further afield in recent years. In the second semester, the study will turn to industry-oriented study, focusing on developing new pieces for festival contexts, and on the skills and resiliencies needed to sustain a living in playwriting. There will be an industry day based at our studio theatre on campus, with talks from directors, agents, producers, publishers, literary officers and writers.

Programme overview

Main Subject

Performing Arts

Degree

MA

Study Level

Masters

The MA Playwriting course is an intensive one-year programme designed to provide a genuine gateway into a writing career in the theatre and performance industries. It is taught by practitioners and is vocationally-oriented and industry-focused. Students will work with leading industry practitioners to develop their playwriting, pitching and dramaturgical skills. Students will learn about and develop skills in writing for performance across a diverse range of contexts, genres and themes. By the end of the course, students will have developed at least one full-length stage play, a collection of one-act dramas, a full-length festival play and at least one play that adapts elements of a classic text to engage with a contemporary context. In Semester 1, students will study the basics of playwriting as a craft, focusing on form and structure. This will include engaging with plays in textual form and in live performance, and the study of plot/story, character, genre, scene development, monologue and dialogue, dramatic action, beginnings, endings, features of staging and audience relationship. Students will study a diverse range of new and historical works, including historical plays that have brought about innovations in dramatic form and structure, as well as new writing staged in Britain and further afield in recent years. In the second semester, the study will turn to industry-oriented study, focusing on developing new pieces for festival contexts, and on the skills and resiliencies needed to sustain a living in playwriting. There will be an industry day based at our studio theatre on campus, with talks from directors, agents, producers, publishers, literary officers and writers.

Admission Requirements

3+
100+
7+

Jan-2000

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