January 2021 Start - MA Theatre-Making Programme Design Document

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1	1. Admissions/ Management Information
2	Title of the new programme – including any lower awards Please provide the titles used for all awards relating to this programme. Note: all programmes are required to have at least a Postgraduate Certificate exit award. See guidance on programme titles in:
3	Masters			MA Theatre-Making
4	Postgraduate Diploma											Please indicate if the Postgraduate Diploma is available as an entry point, ie. is a programme on which a student can register or as an exit award, ie. that are only available to students exiting the masters programme early, or both.					N/A
5	Postgraduate Certificate			Postgraduate Certificate in Theatre-Making								Please indicate if the Postgraduate Certificate is available as an entry points, ie. is a programme on which a student can register, or as an exit award, ie. that are only available to students exiting the masters programme early, or both.					Exit
6	Level of qualification			Level 7
7	This document applies to students who commenced the programme(s) in:							January 2021
8	Awarding institution										Teaching institution
9	University of York										University of York
10	Department(s): Where more than one department is involved, indicate the lead department										Board of Studies
11	Lead Department		Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media								Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media
12	Other contributing Departments:		N/A								Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media
13	Route code (existing programmes only)							PMTHESMAK1
14	Admissions criteria
15	Applicant should have an undergraduate degree of class 2.1 or higher. This is likely to be in drama or theatre, or in another arts and humanities or social sciences subject. Applicants with an undergraduate degree in a science subject will be considered on a case-by-case basis. In every case, we require a writing sample to help us assess applicants' suitability.
16	Length and status of the programme(s) and mode(s) of study
17	Programme				Length (years/ months)	Status (full-time/ part-time) Please select	Start dates/months (if applicable – for programmes that have multiple intakes or start dates that differ from the usual academic year)				Mode
18
19											Face-to-face, campus-based			Distance learning		Other
20	MA in Theatre-Making				1 year (FT), 2 years (PT)	Both	January 2021				Please select Y/N		Yes	Please select Y/N	No	N/A
21	Language(s) of study
22	English
23	Language(s) of assessment
24	English
25	2. Programme accreditation by Professional, Statutory or Regulatory Bodies (PSRB)
26	2.a. Is the programme recognised or accredited by a PSRB
27	Please Select Y/N:		No	if No move to section 3 if Yes complete the following questions
28	2.b. Name of PSRB
29	N/A
30	2.c. Please provide details of any approval/ accreditation event needed, including: timescales, the nature of the event, central support / information required:
31	N/A
32	2.d Does/ will approval or recognition require exceptions to University rules/practices? Please select Y/N								No	if Yes, provide details
33	N/A
34	2.e. Any additional information (e.g. student attainment required to achieve accreditation) that are required by the PSRB should be recorded here
35	N/A
36	3. Additional Professional or Vocational Standards
37	Are there any additional requirements of accrediting bodies or PSRB or pre-requisite professional experience needed to study this programme?
38	Please Select Y/N:		No	if Yes, provide details
39	N/A
40	4. Programme leadership and programme team
41	4.a. Please name the programme leader for the year to which the programme design applies and any key members of staff responsible for designing, maintaining and overseeing the programme.
42	Dr Karen Quigley (PL), Dr Tom Cantrell, Dr Louise LePage, Dr Mark Smith, Dr Katherine Graham
43	4.b. How are wider stakeholders such as students/ alumni, professional bodies and employers involved in the design of the programme and in ongoing reflection on its effectiveness?
44	The new MA programme has been developed over the past few years (the theatre team recently restructured the BA in Theatre: Writing, Directing and Performance and only recently have had capacity to turn these discussions into a full restructure of MA provision). The current proposal is thus built on PTES data from the past few years, MA student representatives' feedback and student focus groups, as well as the destinations and career ambitions of recent students.
45	5. Purpose and learning outcomes of the programme
46	5.a. Statement of purpose for applicants to the masters programme Please express succinctly the overall aims of the programme as an applicant facing statement for a prospectus or website. This should clarify to a prospective student why they should choose this programme, what it will provide to them and what benefits they will gain from completing it.
47	Our MA in Theatre-Making is an intensive and dynamic programme which offers you a unique opportunity to study and make theatre in a rich and stimulating environment, with full use of the Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media's industry standard rehearsal and production facilities. The programme combines seminar explorations and discussions with practical workshop experiments and is designed to ensure that you acquire the necessary analytical, creative and practical skills to enable you to work with creativity and flair, whether your future is in professional theatre or in related areas (such as film and television, arts administration, journalism, publishing, education or further study). The course focuses on your practical work as a theatre-maker. It will give you first-hand experience of the intricate collaborative interplay – between dramatists, directors, and performers - which underpins successful theatre-making in the UK. You will also learn the critical and interpretative skills needed to map and analyse the processes of theatre-making at an ambitious level. We pair close engagement with contemporary practice with active research into some of the longer histories that continue to influence how we make theatre now. The programme provides a rounded learning experience through which you will gain deep theoretical and practical knowledge. You will explore contemporary approaches to making theatre via in-depth investigations of a range of case studies which may include documentary and verbatim theatre, site-responsive practices, theatre and robots and performing archives. You will consider a range of theatre and performance case studies from the early modern period to the present day, interrogating the work of the writer and bringing the roles of the dramaturg, actor and director to bear on the text’s journey towards each new production. Throughout, the course aims to interweave the ethics, politics and aesthetics of theatre making and critical analysis. Building on these skills, you will have the opportunity to develop your own practical or written work in an extended project. The MA, therefore, provides a distinctive opportunity for you to acquire, practically, a rounded experience of theatre-making, to develop your acting and directing skills, and to hone your research skills to reflect critically upon your process. In addition to scheduled classes, you will also benefit from contact with leading theatre-makers. This includes theatre projects, masterclasses, lectures and workshops exploring a wide range of creative disciplines. We have previously worked with playwrights Simon Stephens and Laura Wade, companies Pilot Theatre and Slung Low, actors Penelope Wilton and Sam West and directors Sean Holmes and Sophie Lifschutz in this capacity, and we look forward to sharing an exciting programme of visiting speakers and practitioners with you.
48	5.a.i Statement of purpose for applicants registering for the postgraduate diploma programme Please express succinctly the overall aims of the programme as an applicant facing statement for a prospectus or website. This should clarify to a prospective student why they should choose this programme, what it will provide to them and what benefits they will gain from completing it.
49	N/A
50	5.a.ii Statement of purpose for applicants registering for the postgraduate certificate programme Please express succinctly the overall aims of the programme as an applicant facing statement for a prospectus or website. This should clarify to a prospective student why they should choose this programme, what it will provide to them and what benefits they will gain from completing it.
51	N/A
52	5.b.i. Programme Learning Outcomes - Masters Please provide six to eight statements of what a graduate of the Masters programme can be expected to do. If the document only covers a Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma please specify four to six PLO statements for the PG Certificate and four-eight for the PG Diploma in the sections 5.b.ii and 5.b.iii as appropriate. Taken together, these outcomes should capture the distinctive features of the programme. They should also be outcomes for which progressive achievement through the course of the programme can be articulated, and which will therefore be reflected in the design of the whole programme.
53	PLO	On successful completion of the programme, graduates will be able to:
54	1	Deploy team work skills to create innovative and ambitious practical work in order to respond to challenges and to communicate ideas with clarity and focus.
55	2	Construct and present compelling ideas and arguments demonstrating systematic research, resourcefulness, and rigour on a variety of written and oral formats.
56	3	Practise, at an advanced and independent level, the craft of theatre-making: of conducting rehearsal experiments, of developing ways of making theatre, and planning and leading rehearsals.
57	4	Interpret how scripts are, and historically have been, translated into a range of performance events by critical evaluation of a range of scripted drama.
58	5	Creatively and ambitiously apply the skills acquired and developed on the MA to complete complex projects of their own devising in acting, directing or written research.
59	6	Ambitiously employ the transferable skills that they have gained by working with theatre academics and professionals (via module tutors and visiting artists) so as to advance and develop their own theatre research and practice, and enhance their employability for future careers.
60	5.b.ii. Programme Learning Outcomes - Postgraduate Diploma Please provide four to eight statements of what a graduate of the Postgraduate Diploma programme can be expected to do. Taken together, these outcomes should capture the distinctive features of the programme. They should also be outcomes for which progressive achievement through the course of the programme can be articulated, and which will therefore be reflected in the design of the whole programme.
61	PLO	On successful completion of the programme, graduates will be able to:
62	5.c. Explanation of the choice of Programme Learning Outcomes Please explain your rationale for choosing these PLOs in a statement that can be used for students (such as in a student handbook). Please include brief reference to:
63	i) Why the PLOs are considered ambitious or stretching?
64	These Programme Learning Outcomes are designed to enhance, at an advanced level, students' intellectual, practical, creative and analytical skills in a way which combines academic rigour and independent critical thinking with high-quality practical experiment. Throughout its duration the programme (and the PLOs) underlines the critical importance, to the making of successful theatre, of the interplay between intellectual and creative initiative and fundamental technical and craft skills. The programme gives its students the opportunity to extend their own experience of, and professional effectiveness in, meeting the challenges of theatre-making.
65	ii) The ways in which these outcomes are distinctive or particularly advantageous to the student:
66	The programme is centred on the relationship between rigorous research and ambitious practical experimentation. This joint emphasis is unusual among competitor degrees. Many concentrate, for instance, on devising and improvisation, or are analysis-based (with little or no practical component) and attend only to the interpretation of scripts, separate from the production process which gives them performance life. While remaining academically demanding and rigorous, therefore, this programme develops the students' practice and explores the ways in which research and analysis are crucial to their practical work. The course is thus in close dialogue with the production processes of professional theatre companies and equips its graduates with an enhanced understanding of, and competence in, those processes, to carry with them into the next stage of their careers.
67	iii) Please detail how you would support students from diverse entry routes to transition into the programme? For example, disciplinary knowledge and conventions of the discipline, language skills, academic and writing skills, lab skills, academic integrity
68	Each cohort for this MA arrives with very diverse previous patterns of experience. Some may come, for instance, from first degrees, where academic study predominated; others from a background where practical training and experiment were the key motors of the degree. Our modular structure is therefore central to enabling students from diverse entry points to successfully transition to this level of study. For example, the short, intensive 'Thinking Through Theatre Making' module, and the ways in which this module develops students' competancies towards the PLOs, is central to the degree on many fronts: it is designed to lay the theoretical and practical foundations for the students' studies. It focuses on developing research skills appropriate to a postgraduate level of study, including traditional scholarly disciplines for written work as well as the foundational skills for practice-as/by/based-research. The logic behind this short, intensive module is to bring the diverse cohort quickly to a shared understanding and shared vocabulary so that they can begin more advanced work together later in the term.
69	iv) Please explain how the design of the programme enables students to progress through to the end of the award? For example, in terms of the development of research skills, enabling students to complete an independent study module, developing competence and confidence in practical skills/ professional skills, (See: QAA Mater's degree characteristics http://www.qaa.ac.uk/publications/information-and-guidance/publication?PubID=2977#.WS1JOevyu70).
70	The programme is designed as a series of logical steps. As above, the first module is designed to lay the theoretical and practical foundations for the students' work. The following parallel modules, 'Contemporary Approaches to Theatre Making' and 'Elements of Theatre Making' are designed to build on this first module in different ways. In the 'Contemporary Approaches' module students will explore, in detail, the work of significant contemporary theatre makers. In the 'Elements of Theatre Making' module, students will develop their own creative practice. The 'Production Project' module brings together these two areas of study into a group project which combines their practice and the employment of the approaches they have studied. The aim is that, by the time each student launches into work on their 'Extended Practical Project or Dissertation', they will have received the opportunity to enhance the skills most crucial to their succes in this final phase of the programme.
71	v) How the programme learning outcomes develop students’ digital literacy and use technology-enhanced learning to achieve the discipline and pedagogic goals which support active student learning through peer/tutor interaction, collaboration and formative (self) assessment opportunities (reference could be made to such as blogging, flipped classrooms, response 'clickers' in lectures, simulations, etc).
72	This element represents only a relatively modest presence in the programme, partly because the programme's key focus is on the face-to-face interactions of the rehearsal room. A wide range of online sources, however, is used for it and we develop the students' skills with regard to online research via the use of theatre blogs and online archives ,as well as filmed records of extant productions. Students also are assessed on presentations which deploy a variety of electronic materials in their support.
73	vi) How the PLOs support and enhance the students’ employability (for example, opportunities for students to apply their learning in a real world setting)? The programme's employability objectives should be informed by the University's Employability Strategy:
74	For the reasons outlined in ii) above, the MA is designed to engage with contemporary theatre, both from a scholarly and practical perspective. Some of the leading practitioners who regularly join us for masterclasses for our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes have told us that they are particularly attracted by the programmes' emphasis on the collaborative nature of the theatre process, and on the need for each participant in that process to be alert, and pro-actively responsive, to the indispensable contributions made by others to the joint endeavour's ultimate success or failure, plus the programmes' inculcation (among other skills) of fundamentally collaborative working methods. So, in addition to the specific skills that students can focus on in their extended practical project/dissertation, at its core are a set of competences which are fundamental to employment in theatre, and other media. These are also, as our PLOs make clear, crucial transferable skills into other realms of employment.
75	vii) Consultation with Careers The programme proposal should be discussed with Careers. Please contact your Faculty Employability Manager. Please provide details of Careers' comments and your response.
76	Building on the scope of the previous MA in Theatre: Writing, Directing and Performance, we engage with Careers in relation to building freelance careers, writing an artist's CV and articulating the course's transferable skills towards a range of possible careers.
77	viii) How is teaching informed and led by research in the department/ centre/ University?
78	The programme is designed to ensure that this occurs. The modules are designed to be research led, so that, for example, the 'Production Project' module will be taught by a specialist from the department in a particular theatrical form, which might be Brecht's political theatre, documentary theatre or site-specific theatrical practice. The practitioners explored in the 'Contemporary Approaches to Theatre Making' module can also vary depending on the expertise of the tutor(s).
79	5.d. Progression For masters programmes where students do not incrementally 'progress' on the completion of a discrete Postgraduate Certificate and Postgraduate Diploma, please summarise students’ progressive development towards the achievement of PLOs, in terms of the characteristics that you expect students to demonstrate at the end of the set of modules or part thereof, and provide appropriate detail of the module diet students will need to complete. This summary may be particularly helpful to students and the programme team where there is a high proportion of option modules and in circumstances where students registered on a higher award will exit early with a lower one. Note: it is not expected that a position statement is written for each masters PLO, but this can be done if preferred.
80	i) If the Postgraduate Certificate is an exit award only please:
81	Provide a global statement to explain what a student who exits with a PG Cert award will be able to do (this should capture the extent of the achievement of the programme learning outcomes). NB: Where more than one PG Cert is available as an exit award a statement should be provided detailing what a student exiting with each award will be able to do									Detail the module diet that students will have to have completed to gain the PG Cert as an exit award. NB: Where more than one PG Cert is available as an exit award the module diet required for each award should be given
82	The progress towards the PLOs will be as follows: PLO1: Develop team work skills to create practical work in order to respond to challenges and to communicate ideas with clarity and focus. PLO2 ‘Construct and present compelling ideas and arguments demonstrating systematic research, resourcefulness, and rigour in both written and oral formats. PLO3: Practise the craft of theatre-making: of conducting rehearsal experiments, of developing ways of making theatre, and planning and leading rehearsals. PLO4: Interpret how scripts can be translated into performance events both through an understanding of the historical context of, and ability to critically evaluate, scripted drama. PLO5: Begin to apply the skills acquired and developed on the MA to launch projects of their own devising in acting, directing or written research. PLO6: Demonstrate a capacity to work across a modest range of media by bringing to bear the knowledge and creative flair developed through their studies.									Students will have completed 60 credits to exit with a PG Cert. The diet will be: Thinking Through Theatre (20 credits), and then a minimum of two of the three following modules: Contemporary Approaches to Theatre Making (20 credits), Elements of Theatre Making (20 credits) and Production Project (20 credits).
83	ii) If the Postgraduate Diploma is an exit award only please:
84	Provide a global statement to explain what a student who exits with a PG Dip award will be able to do (this should capture the extent of the achievement of the programme learning outcomes)									Detail the module diet that students will have to have completed to gain the PG Dip as an exit award
85	n/a									N/A
86	5.e. Other features of the programme
87	i) Involvement of partner organisations Are any partner organisations involved in the delivery of the programme?
88	Please Select Y/N:		No	if Yes, outline the nature of their involvement (such as contributions to teaching, placement provision). Where appropriate, see also the:
89	Please Select Y/N:		No	University guidance on collaborative provision
90	N/A
91	ii) Internationalisation/ globalisation How does the programme promote internationalisation and encourage students to develop cross-cultural capabilities?
92	The programme, though focusing on theatre-making in the UK, explores a wide range of playwrights and practitioners. These include European writers, American actor trainers, and practitioners from around the world. This range of voices and approaches is important to the programme and informs the students' practical and analytical work.
93	iii) Inclusivity How will good practice in ensuring equality, diversity and inclusion be embedded in the design, content and delivery of the programme?
94	This refers to the protected characteristics and duties on the University outlined in the Equality Act 2010
95	Members of the Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee have been involved in the design of the programme. We are in freqent communication about the programme's delivery with the Chair of the Commitee. Particular care has been taken to ensure that the prgramme is inclusive in nature: that it fosters team-work, develops collaboration and the sharing of working processes in the teaching sessions. Developing an ensemble where all are equal and everyone feels able to actively contribute is critical to any group creative endeavour. Finally, we are committed to practicing diversity in terms of the sources, examples, theoreticians and practitioners we choose to cite, much as we do on the BA Theatre.
96	6. Reference points and programme regulations
97	6.a. Relevant Quality Assurance Agency benchmark statement(s) and other relevant external reference points Please state relevant reference points consulted (e.g. Framework for Higher Education Qualifications, National Occupational Standards, Subject Benchmark Statements or the requirements of PSRBs): See also Taught Postgraduate Modular Scheme: Framework for Programme Design:
98	6.b. University award regulations
99	7. Programme Structure
100	See Jan 2021 Tab for Section 7a and 7b