Entrepreneurship and Theatre

Entrepreneurship and theatre is a combination that reflects the reality of building a sustainable creative career. Theatre-makers, performers, and arts practitioners need not only artistic skill but the commercial, organisational, and entrepreneurial capacities to create and run their own projects, companies, and productions. The intersection of these two disciplines produces graduates who can make theatre and who understand how to make it financially and organisationally viable, a rare and valuable combination in the creative economy.

At the University of Derby, this three-year full-time programme includes a foundation year, a sandwich placement year, a year abroad, and a work placement, making it one of the more richly structured programmes of its kind. The foundation year gives you a supported entry point into higher education if your background requires it. On the degree itself, you will develop your theatrical skills, including performance, devising, directing, and production, alongside studies in entrepreneurship, business planning, innovation, and the commercial aspects of the creative industries.

The placement year puts this learning into a professional context, and the year abroad broadens your understanding of theatre and entrepreneurship in different cultural settings.

You will develop creative and commercial confidence in parallel, learning to think as both an artist and a practitioner who can sustain a creative enterprise. The degree explicitly frames entrepreneurship as a foundation for launching your own business or bringing innovation to existing organisations, which reflects the portfolio and project-based nature of most theatre careers.

Graduates move into careers in theatre performance and production, arts administration, creative entrepreneurship, and arts management. Some establish their own theatre companies or creative enterprises, while others bring entrepreneurial skills to established arts organisations or to commercial environments where creativity and innovation are valued.