| Program start date | Application deadline |
| 2023-09-18 | - |
Program Overview
Overview
Study all aspects of musical theatre as you expand your musical talents and skills
Our BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (Music) degree is the only musical theatre course in the UK to place the voice, acting through song and song analysis at its core while also giving a substantial skills framework with the study of dance (ballet, tap and jazz), acting techniques and contextual modules through all three years.
BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (Music)
Learn more about our BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (Music) course from our current staff and students.
Gain highly-practical musical theatre training with a focus on music and voice
You will receive traditional training in every aspect of musical theatre (singing, acting and dance) alongside a specialist focus on the practical, theoretical, and emotional analysis of the music of musical theatre.
You will build a substantial skills framework with the study of dance (ballet, tap, and jazz), acting techniques, as well as dedicated modules on the development of your musical and vocal abilities and understanding.
Perform in productions and industry showreels
With a high level of contact time, this course also includes opportunities to take part in the dedicated second- and third-year productions, study swing routes, perform in numerous concerts in a variety of venues and create an Industry Showreel with professional headshots.
Emotionally connect with performance materials
We use a central ‘Head, Hand, Heart’ model that promotes the importance of ‘understanding, doing and feeling’ in stage performance. This model will help you to enhance your future professional success and employability.
Forward thinking and socially engaged students develop their creativity, originality and excellence positioning them to realise sustainable futures in the Industry.
Spotlight accredited
Our Spotlight accreditation offers you discounted graduate membership to largest casting resource in the United Kingdom, inclusion in a dedicated ‘graduate’ section of their website, access to their dedicated one-to-one career advice sessions, and much more.
On this course you will:
Gain a comprehensive musical theatre training with specialist options in music and voice.
Highlight your musical strength through dedicated classes in acting through song, vocal studies, and music analysis.
Star in our industry showcase and perform throughout your degree
Learn from our expert and industry-active teaching staff, including star of stage and screen Meredith Braun.
Expand your professional network and career opportunities through our Spotlight accreditation
Program Outline
Teaching and Assessment
Feel the support of our expert and experienced staff
Our expert and experienced musical theatre practitioners get to know you as individual so you can feel more confident to develop your technical skills and explore your creative ideas in a supportive environment.
Typical study weeks include:
Outside of scheduled classes you will complete independent study including developing repertoire, researching texts, individual solo practise, completing individual or group tasks and working on your assignments.
Meet programme leader Meredith Braun
View profile
Meredith Braun
Programme Leader, Musical Theatre (Music) and Senior LecturerAs a Principal in Musical Theatre Meredith has been fortunate to have enjoyed an extensive national and international career, including roles in the West End as vocally diverse as:
Les Misérables
The Phantom of the Opera
The Secret Garden
The Muppet Christmas Carol
.The Course
Develop specialist technical and performance skills across acting, dancing and singing
The Acting Through Song and Theatre Craft modules form the backbone of the course through all three years, as you explore the practical, theoretical, and emotional analysis of the music of musical theatre.
Acting Through Song
This module stretches throughout the course and allows you to strengthen your craft of creating a journey through song through both analysis and performance.
Through masterclasses and lectures, you will develop your understanding of text, music, acting and vocal choices and the emotional and physical journey of character.
Study areas include:
Theatre Craft
Throughout your degree, you will explore approaches to both acting and dancing, as you widen your application of craft and technique and deepen your critical thinking.
All of your learning in this area will go towards the production of a final industry-standard showreel that you will use to kickstart you career.
Study areas include:
Select a year
Acting Through Song
Masterclass
Musical Grammar
Musical Theatre History and Context
Professional Resilience
Style and Genre
Theatre Craft
Acting Through Song
Acting Through Song
Through analysis and performance, this module allows you to discover and establish skills in creating a journey through song. Delivered via a combination of one-to-one lessons, lectures and masterclasses, you will explore text, music, acting, vocal choices and the emotional and physical journey of character. The module also includes repertoire classes, audition technique, vocal health and physiology and audio/visual recording.
Masterclass
Masterclass
This module develops your basic performance and communication skills and your sense of performance context. You will develop your repertoire, your understanding of style and your skill in preparing for audition or performance.
Musical Grammar
Musical Grammar
This module builds on the knowledge you have accrued on music grammar and deepens your understanding of key elements of musical structure.
You will continue to present and discuss your work, both individually and in groups – enhancing skills in teamwork and presentation and building confidence.
Musical Theatre History and Context
Musical Theatre History and Context
This module includes a thorough investigation of the key elements of musical theatre – song and lyrics, book and libretto, choreography, staging and the physical production and aims to develop the skills of reading, writing, critical thinking, research and oral communication that are fundamental to collaboration.
Professional Resilience
Professional Resilience
This module will explore a range of different strategies designed to offer support to the emerging arts practitioner and will introduce you to a number of different models of successful self-development.
Style and Genre
Style and Genre
Lectures, analytical listening and set reading materials will take you on a chronological survey of the Western Art-Music tradition from its beginnings in ancient Greece, through the birth of polyphony, early opera, the works of Mozart and Beethoven, to the Tristan Prelude and the roots of modernism.
Throughout this process, you will examine the development of genres, musical structures, and compositional style.
Theatre Craft
Theatre Craft
This module allows you to establish and refine skills in the essential Musical Theatre dance disciplines of Ballet, Jazz and Tap and to explore distinct approaches to acting.
There is a strong emphasis on consolidating and enhancing technique, improving posture and proprioceptive awareness, and developing musicality and artistic qualities within movement. You will consider the importance of craft and technique but also the critical thinking at the heart of the creative process.
The Acting methods include Stanislavski, Brecht, Meisner, Comedy and Physical Theatre.
Acting Through Song 2
Masterclass
Musicals On Screen
Opera and Operetta
Performance Anxiety
Professional Resilience
Self-Employment, Employment and Visualising Success
The Musical Theatre Business
Theatre Craft 2A & B
Acting Through Song 2
Acting Through Song 2
This module allows you to strengthen your craft of creating a journey through song through both analysis and performance.
You will assess the repertoire studied over the previous year and begin to explore more varied and challenging work under the direction of your individual vocal teacher and group tutors.
Through masterclasses and lectures, you will develop your understanding of text, music, acting and vocal choices and the emotional and physical journey of character.
Masterclass
Masterclass
This module continues to develop your performance and communication skills and your sense of performance context. You will develop your repertoire, your understanding of style and your skill in preparing for audition or performance.
Musicals On Screen
Musicals On Screen
This module explores the diverse cultural, social and historical contexts in which the movie musical has developed and currently operates. In addition, you will focus on the exploration of different filmmaking techniques, technologies and creative methodologies, using real world movie musicals as examples.
Opera and Operetta
Opera and Operetta
Available in two different delivery modes, this module can be followed as either a conventional weekly series of lectures during semester two, or as a week-long intensive culminating in a staged performance outside the semester period.
Learning is focused on examples drawn from 19th century opera forms, seeking to develop a lively sense of the evolving performance context, which came to be described as operetta.
Performance Anxiety
Performance Anxiety
Examine the problem of performance anxiety and stage nerves and study the theoretical background and how to effectively deal with anxiety.
You will look at the performance itself and the surrounding physiological and psychological factors that lead to stage nerves during performance.
This module introduces a wide range of theories from relevant disciplines including cognitive behavioural therapy and neuro-linguistic programming.
Professional Resilience
Professional Resilience
This module will explore a range of different strategies designed to offer support to the emerging arts practitioner and will introduce you to a number of different models of successful self-development.
Self-Employment, Employment and Visualising Success
Self-Employment, Employment and Visualising Success
This module explores the local and national marketplace and will introduce you to a number of different models of successful positioning within it.
A successful career as a music professional needs to be informed, alongside musical and communication skills, by an understanding of the nature of self-employment in business.
This module will seek to develop this, and to encourage a confident approach to the world beyond university, enabling a tailored financial and business planning which encourages an awareness of local markets and circumstances.
The Musical Theatre Business
The Musical Theatre Business
You will explore examples of different types of musical theatre performance and the function of a range of professional roles in commercial and publicly funded contexts.
Theatre Craft 2A & B
Theatre Craft 2A & B
This module further develops your skills in the Musical Theatre dance disciplines of ballet, jazz and tap. Barre work and centre practice increase in complexity.
Jazz classes will follow the format of conditioning, stretching, and strengthening of the body and the vocabulary of steps in tap will build as you progress, as will the challenge in content and rhythm.
In addition, you will further explore approaches to acting, widening your application of craft and technique, and deepening your critical thinking.
Acting Through Song 3
Business Project
Communicating Music Through Movement & Gesture
Create Your Own Show (Personal Study)
Introduction to Fundraising in the Arts
Masterclass
Opera
Personal Study (Recital)
Personal Study (Written)
Professional Resilience
Song Writing
The MT Swing
Theatre Craft 3A & B
Acting Through Song 3
Acting Through Song 3
This module allows you to refine your craft of creating a journey through song through more comprehensive analysis and proficient performance.
You will assess the repertoire studied over the previous years and begin to explore advanced work under the direction of your individual vocal teacher and group tutors.
Through masterclasses and lectures you will further develop your understanding of text, music, acting and vocal choices and the emotional and physical journey of character.
Business Project
Business Project
This module is taken by Arts Management students and aims to develop competency in business planning and imaginative use of physical and creative resources.
Communicating Music Through Movement & Gesture
Communicating Music Through Movement & Gesture
This module explores the opportunities that exist for enhanced communication within the formal performance context, using your own physical projection of self and personal narrative of intention.
Work will also be developed in a broader context, allowing a deeper understanding of the semiotics of movement – the kinesic variables which impact upon the viewer – and the generic codes that attach to the music you play.
Create Your Own Show (Personal Study)
Create Your Own Show (Personal Study)
This module allows you to select an area or areas of study of their choice, in singing, instrumental study, dance (including choreography), acting, comedy, magic, and to develop this over an extended period into a self-devised show.
This provides an opportunity to develop an individual repertoire, and to present a longer and more challenging programme of work centred around your individual skill set.
Introduction to Fundraising in the Arts
Introduction to Fundraising in the Arts
The module will consider the third-sector in relation to the other two sectors, the legal structures for non-profit organisations and regional variations in regulation, alongside the charity model in at least one other country.
Masterclass
Masterclass
This module develops your advanced performance and communication skills and your sense of performance context. You will develop your repertoire, your understanding of style and your skill in preparing for audition or performance.
Opera
Opera
This module takes a chronological approach to the study of the genre, beginning with the early Baroque and offering examples of differing musical styles up until the first half of the 20th century, with a particular focus on the late 18th to mid 19th centuries.
The relationship between narrative and the musical expression of dramatic tension will be explored, and lectures will make connections between the function of musical structure and form within individual works and the development of character and plot.
Personal Study (Recital)
Personal Study (Recital)
This module sees you select an area of study in performance and develop it over an extended period.
For performers, this is an opportunity to present a longer and more challenging programme of work.
Personal Study (Written)
Personal Study (Written)
This module provides you with an opportunity to select an area of study of your choice, to research it and present your findings in written form, and to develop this over an extended period.
Professional Resilience
Professional Resilience
This module will explore a range of different strategies designed to offer support to the emerging arts practitioner and will introduce you to several different models of successful self-development.
Song Writing
Song Writing
This module brings together the practical and theoretical skills a composer needs for completing and presenting compositions. It gives you a forum to demonstrate the musical and lyric writing skills and techniques developed during the course and leads to projects preparing for effective public performance.
The MT Swing
The MT Swing
This module gives you an insight to the role of a ‘swing’ within a musical theatre performance context. This is where you will be asked to learn all the parts of a particular production to be ready to fill any role.
You will develop an exploration of performance styles in practical work and a willingness to approach new and more complex learning strategies.
A more professional approach to rehearsal will be encouraged and you will keep a ‘swing bible’ (written log) of all information needed to effectively take part in the performance, in any given role.
Theatre Craft 3A & B
Theatre Craft 3A & B
This module develops your skills in the Musical Theatre dance disciplines to create proficient performances.
You will investigate classical ballet performance and its important links to other dance styles. You will be able to use your musical experience to select music for appropriate routines – Waltz, Tango, Hornpipe etc., apply different varieties of music to jazz formats – Lyrical, Contemporary, Street etc, and develop your musical understanding within the tap genre of how to create different beats and rhythms within phrases.
You will further develop your approaches to acting with more advanced textual, physical, and dramaturgical analysis. Through study of Hagen and Practical Aesthetics you will deepen your critical thinking.
Lucy
BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (Music) “This course is really helping me to grow in confidence as a performer. The lecturers are amazing at catering to everyone's specific needs and creating a very safe working environment where I'm not afraid to try out new things"Careers
Prepare for a rewarding career within the performance industry
This BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (Music) degree will prepare you for your future career. You will have the opportunity to develop a broad range of skills to enhance your CV and your employability.
High-contact hours with industry experts, focus on performance skills and experience, and strong professional links with the sector help prepare you for your future career, as you develop a broad range of skills to enhance your CV and your employability.
As performers, alumni have gone into:
Further Study
You could choose to continue your studies at postgraduate level.
Study options at the University of Chichester include:
University of Chichester alumni who have completed a full undergraduate degree at the University will receive a 15% discount on their postgraduate fees.
