Drama with a Foundation Year

Drama as a university discipline goes well beyond performance. It asks fundamental questions about why human beings tell stories, how theatre has functioned across cultures and historical periods, and what happens in the encounter between performers and audiences. It develops your capacity to analyse texts and performances critically, to collaborate creatively, and to communicate with confidence and imagination.

These are skills that matter not just in the arts but across a wide range of professional contexts.

At the University of East Anglia, this four-year programme begins with a foundation year, which gives you a thorough grounding in the academic and practical skills you need before moving into the main degree. The foundation year is particularly valuable if your background is non-traditional or if you want to build confidence in both the theoretical and performance dimensions of the subject before embarking on the full degree. Once you progress, you will engage with dramatic literature from ancient Greece to the present day, study theatre history and theory, and take part in practical work that explores devising, directing, and performance.

UEA has a strong tradition in creative and performing arts, and the programme reflects the university's commitment to combining rigorous intellectual enquiry with genuine creative practice.

You will learn to read plays and productions analytically, to situate theatrical work in its social and cultural context, and to make informed arguments about what theatre does and why it matters. Practical projects give you the experience of making work as well as writing about it, and the two modes of engagement inform each other throughout the course.

Graduates of drama programmes work in theatre, television, film, and radio, as performers, directors, producers, writers, and arts administrators. They also move into teaching, community arts, cultural policy, and education more broadly. The communication, collaboration, and creative thinking skills the degree develops are valued well beyond the arts sector, and many graduates build careers in areas such as project management, public relations, and the wider creative industries.