Playwriting

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MA Playwriting offers you the opportunity to develop as a playwright, by learning with professional dramatists. You will produce a varied portfolio of dramatic works, culminating in a full-length original play, which will enable you to hone and develop your own unique voice.

Our students study and practise the principles of dramatic structure and scene construction, explore the origins and possibilities of poetic theatre and verse drama, develop radio drama, and learn about techniques for working as a playwright with youth and community groups. At the end of the course your work will be rehearsed and given a public performance in the Lakeside Theatre at our Colchester Campus. Your dissertation gives you the chance to write a full-length play with one-to-one supervision from an award-winning playwright tutor.

A vibrant centre for theatre and creative writing, our Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies hosts visiting writers and speakers. In addition to weekly talks, seminars and film-screenings, there is an innovative programme of plays, workshops and master classes at our Lakeside Theatre. Our MA Playwriting is flexible and allows you to choose modules in other areas of creative writing, literature or film, if you so wish. Our Theatre Research Lab, at our Lakeside Theatre, offers resources for playwriting students to develop their plays through rehearsed readings and workshops. Our course tutors include Elizabeth Kuti, Jonathan Lichtenstein, Glyn Maxwell and Rebecca Prichard, who between them have had plays commissioned and/or produced at the Abbey Theatre Dublin, the Traverse in Edinburgh, the Globe, the Soho Theatre, the National Theatre and the Royal Court, and BBC Radio 4 and 3. Their awards collectively include Edinburgh Fringe Firsts, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, the Stewart Parker Radio Award and the Critics Circle Award.

This course will be of interest to those who wish to pursue a career in many areas of the arts, creative writing and media. It can lead to further study at PhD level and careers in higher education or teaching at other levels of education. It is open to those with specialist academic qualifications in a relevant field such as drama, literature, film or creative writing; or alternatively to those with relevant professional experience.

A Masters course is an academically rigorous programme during which you explore your subject in depth, reaching a high level of specialist knowledge. You draw on knowledge and skills from your undergraduate study or your professional life to produce work of a high academic standard, informed by current thinking and debate.
A Masters course lasts for twelve months (full-time), starting in October, and consists of taught modules during your autumn and spring terms, and normally a research-based dissertation or other project-based work submitted in September. Typically your research (dissertation) counts for 80 credits and there are 100 credits of modules, each individual module worth 20 credits. (If you are from the EU, then our Masters courses are regarded as second-cycle qualifications under the Bologna Declaration and consist of 90 ECTS credits).
Please note that module information on our course finder provides a guide to course content and may be subject to review on an annual basis.

Modules
Core modules
* Dissertation
* Research Methods In Literary And Cultural Analysis

Compulsory modules
* Dramatic Structure
* Playwriting In The Community
* Verse On Stage
* Writing Radio Drama

Core modules must be taken and passed.
Core with options modules selected from limited lists must be taken and passed.
Compulsory modules must be taken.
Compulsory with options modules selected from limited lists must be taken.
Optional modules are selected from course specific lists.

Our applicants should have an Upper Second Class Honours degree, or equivalent, in a relevant area.If English is not your first language, then we require IELTS 7.0, or equivalent, with 6.5 in writing. English Language Requirements IELTS band: 7 TOEFL iBT® test: 100 IMPORTANT NOTE: Since April 2014 the ETS tests (including TOEFL and TOEIC) are no longer accepted for Tier 4 visa applications to the United Kingdom. The university might still accept these tests to admit you to the university, but if you require a Tier 4 visa to enter the UK and begin your degree programme, these tests will not be sufficient to obtain your Visa. The IELTS test is most widely accepted by universities and is also accepted for Tier 4 visas to the UK- learn more.