Theatre Now: Contemporary Performance

Overview

This module offers students the opportunity to engage with examples of contemporary theatre texts and performances from a wide range of perspectives. The course will investigate how writers, theatre companies, and performers have addressed contemporary issues and concerns to do with, for example, gender, race and class. It will also explore how theories and ideas around such issues help to shape the analysis of theatre and performance. The module aims to provide students with the skills and tools to become competent readers of contemporary theatre, and to encourage them to engage with multiple perspectives on the political nature of theatre and performance.

Learning Objectives

Students will:
- Be able to critically and theoretically analyse, evaluate and interpret performance texts and performance events from a range of critical perspectives,
- Be able to theorise, interpret, and analyse the theatre event as a complex matrix of relationships between texts, participants (spectators, performers), playing spaces, and the material, historical and cultural contexts of its production and reception,
- Have developed their critical, analytic and performance skills,
- Have improved their essay writing skills and deepened their understanding of how written work is assessed.

Skills

Critical evaluation, Research-led inquiry, Writing Skills, Teamwork

Assessment

None