MA Acting for Stage and Screen

Program Overview

---

You can apply for this course as an MA (1 year course) or an MFA (2 year course). The MFA takes one extra year and you can apply by choosing the MFA option when you click 'apply'.

The MA Acting for Stage and Screen is an innovative professional training in stage and screen acting.

Through practice-led learning and research alongside leading industry professionals, you will be immersed in developing and enhancing professional techniques in acting, text, voice, movement and performance for stage and screen.

Our goal is to develop flexible and versatile actor-entrepreneurs who are empowered through mastery of their craft across diverse mediums, spaces and platforms.

From initial idea through to performance or screening we will encourage and support you in finessing your craft and deepening understanding of your creative, collaboration, performance and research processes.

You will be supported to direct your development and research process to leverage your own personal creative toolkit of skills for a wide range of professional contexts.

Program Outline

Acting for Stage

The aim of this module is to develop advanced integrated creative and technical skills in the context of Acting for Stage:

Adaptive Capacity: Acting Skills Development for Stage-based performance practice

Practice and Enhancement: Skills Development in Context

Interdisciplinary Practice and Skills

Applied Skills and Techniques

Research, Contextualisation and Impact

Acting for Screen

The aim of this module is to develop advanced integrated creative and technical skills in the context of Acting for Screen:

Adaptive Capacity: Acting Skills Development for Screen-based performance practice

Practice and Enhancement: Skills Development in Context

Interdisciplinary Practice and Skills

Applied Skills and Techniques

Research, Contextualisation and Impact

Creative Technologies

Developing and applying technologies to innovate, narrate, capture and disseminate interdisciplinary praxis and its impact:

Technology as collaborator: e.g. presentation and narration tools, AR, media formats.

Enhancing learning with technology:

e.g. communication, networking, Augmented Reality (AR), social platforms.

Interaction Design: tools, skills and techniques

Narrating Practice: Digital Storytelling, content capture and representation

Interdisciplinary Intersections

Developing Cross-Disciplinary Coherence:

Distribution and leverage of hard skills and soft skills for professional industrial contexts

Disciplinary rigour: skills, knowledge, understanding pertaining to area/s of student specialism (e.g. Sound and Music for Media, Games and Theatre, Production and Performance, Acting for Stage and Screen)

Cross-disciplinary Competences and Capabilities:

e.g. Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking, personal and social capabilities, problem-solving, digital proficiency, cultural, social, emotional, physical intelligence.

Integrative modes, models and frameworks for interdisciplinary praxis, collaboration and research

Creative Project Design

Models, methods and modes for creative project design:

Models of creativity and design: disciplinary and interdisciplinary models, transferring expertise between disciplines, design thinking,

Applied models: e.g. hypothesis driven, experimental, staged, design thinking, iterative, emergent design, innovation practice, prototyping

Creative Innovation Project: conceptualisation and design, implementation and leadership models, collaboration methodologies

Project design: design principles, design thinking, (rationale, aims, objectives, methodologies, resources, tools, collaborators, timescale, scope)

Leadership and Facilitation: change processes, innovation processes

Organisational Context: distribution of expertise, climate, culture

Dissertation / Final Project

Research and development

Research Methodologies and Project Proposal

Contextual and Ethical Awareness

Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinary intersections

Literature Review

Project Review and Evaluation

Interactive Portfolio Development and Digital Storytelling

Additional Modules of the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) Degree

Research Praxis

Applied Praxis and Research Methodologies – Distributed Expertise: Distributed Learning

Research Base: establishing context, sources and parameters for research

Research Skills: methodologies, processes and frameworks

Contextual Awareness: distribution of expertise, climate and culture

Research Capture and Dissemination

Research Ethics: establishing ethical research practices and processes

Meta-Praxis

Context and Student-specific live applied project

Project Design Implementation, Facilitation and Leadership

Interdisciplinary Interface and Interaction

Modelling Reflexive Practice

Modelling Transversal Skills Development

Evaluative Case Study

Research Capture and Dissemination: Interactive Portfolio and Presentation of Praxis

This course suite will develop knowledge, cognitive and practical skills and experience to develop dynamic and adaptable actors for stage and screen, who can work across traditional and non-traditional contexts.

You will develop advanced technical and creative skills relevant to your specialist focus within professional practice.

Core skills will be developed through collaboration and in-context application across all programme pathways, and industry specific skills will be developed and applied within the industrial context of the student's workplace, placement context, or chosen community / professional setting.

The course focuses upon leading creative and collaborative projects that are designed and implemented by students, supported by teaching staff and industry mentors, to create impact for students and the publics, communities and collaborators with which they are working.

Study will be practice-led, with a focus on developing a range of research skills and models for creative practice, applied in diverse professional contexts. You will also develop contextual awareness and responsiveness, examining the influence and impact of your work for and upon the many contextual layers interconnected with it, including but not limited to the social, cultural, historical, economic, technological, environmental, and ethical.

Project development, outcomes, and impact will be captured and disseminated and assessed by:

Interactive Portfolios

Literature Reviews

Critical Evaluation

Research and Development Repositories

Presentation, workshops, and seminars

Reflective Journals

Collaborative practice-led research

Assessment Tasks and Portfolios

Assessment frequently includes the creation of portfolios, comprising production reports, written reports, extended essays, and live practical assessments relevant to disciplinary and interdisciplinary practice.

Portfolio content will depend on the module assessment task in which the portfolio features, consisting of a wide variety of mediums from digital content, such as video and audio recordings, or digital images, which capture the production and performance/ media of practical work and technical outcomes. Portfolios will be digital documents presented online using web publishing tools.

Details of the requirements and content for portfolios and assessment tasks will be provided in module guides for each module. To allow for diversity and inclusivity across course clusters, it will be appropriate, based on relevant course subject, to further stipulate the form of assessment required i.e. artefacts and performance/ media pieces captured as evidence digitally and or non-digital formats (e.g. published printed book), which may subsequently be documented digitally (i.e. coursework portfolio).

Portfolios will take the form of digital and physical documents presented online using web publishing tools and or physical portfolios that have been printed and curated into a portable portfolio.

From this practice, you will demonstrate and reflect upon the process of creating and preparing a final professional body of work for professional display, further development in production and or industry.

You will be assessed through the development and delivery of live projects, applied in professional contexts appropriate to your area of specialism.

All assessment is a combination of:

60% Practical

40% Coursework

Ongoing formative feedback will provide you with continuous support and opportunities for development and growth. For formal assessment, we aim to provide feedback in 20 working days.