Theatre and Performance

Theatre and performance is a discipline that takes seriously the full breadth of live and contemporary creative practice, from scripted theatrical production to devised and collaborative work, from site-specific performance to community-engaged practice. It combines theoretical understanding of what performance is and how it has developed with practical skill in making work, positioning you as both a thinker and a practitioner. Theatre and performance studies recognise that the two dimensions are inseparable in professional and creative life.

At the University of Leeds, this three-year full-time degree offers a dynamic combination of practical and theoretical study, with a focus on collaborative, contemporary performance. You will develop your own creative practice in small group settings at specialist studios in stage@leeds, an on-campus professional theatre, giving you access to a genuine performance venue as the context for your work throughout your studies. The programme connects you to professional practice beyond the university through partnerships with organisations including Leeds Playhouse, Opera North, local theatre companies, schools, galleries, museums, and institutions within the criminal justice system.

These external partnerships give you experience of how theatre and performance operate in a range of community and professional contexts. A sandwich year provides further professional experience, a year abroad broadens your creative and intellectual horizons, and work placement is embedded in the degree.

You will develop both technical and creative skills alongside the critical and analytical capacities to understand and articulate what you are making and why.

Graduates go on to careers in theatre and performance making and production, arts administration, community arts, education, drama facilitation, broadcasting, the cultural sector, and a range of roles in the creative industries. Many pursue postgraduate study in performance, directing, or related disciplines, and some go on to careers in arts leadership and policy.