Program Overview

Our four-year BA Drama (including foundation year), will be suitable for you if your academic qualifications do not yet meet our entrance requirements for the three-year version of this course and you want a programme that increases your subject knowledge as well as improves your academic skills in order to support your academic performance.

This four-year course includes a foundation year (Year Zero), followed by a further three years of study. During your Year Zero, you study three academic subjects relevant to your chosen course as well as a compulsory academic skills module, with additional English language for non-English speakers.

You are an Essex student from day one, a member of our global community based at the most internationally diverse campus university in the UK.

After successful completion of Year Zero in our Essex Pathways Department, you progress to complete your course with our Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies.

With Drama at Essex, we offer a rich combination of practical workshops, critical seminars and lectures, and employability opportunities delivered by an experienced team of playwrights, directors, and actors, as well as leading academic theatre specialists.

Areas of exploration in our modules include, but are not limited to:

• Dramatic literature from Ancient Greek tragedy and Shakespeare, to modern plays from around the world
• Contemporary playwriting and devising techniques
• Staging political ideas, human rights and social justice issues
• Gender, identity, orientation and sexual politics on stage
• Creating Applied Theatre in educational and community contexts
• Emergent trends in interactive performance-making and audience participation

Through classroom teaching, practical experiment and professional experience, we help you craft the skillset that will be essential in your creative development. This approach reflects our core belief that engaging with both practice and theory produces a deeper understanding of how theatre works.