Introduction to the London Stage 1

Assessment: coursework portfolio

If you are registered on our Study Abroad Programme, there is no charge for tuition of this module. Students on the International Exchange or Erasmus Programme are welcome to register for this module for a standard 20 credit module fee of £2083. All students registered for this module – Study Abroad, Exchange or Erasmus – must pay a small supplemental charge of around £50-£150 to cover the costs of fields trips. 
London is one of Europe’s most exciting theatrical cities with a range of productions on offer at any given time. Students are introduced to the wide diversity of theatre in London from the major subsidised companies, through the commercial West End to smaller fringe venues and productions. Weekly visits to new or recent events in the capital are introduced with a critical context and are discussed the following week within seminar groups. As part of the seminars, students will explore a range of strategies for analysing dramatic texts in production and reading live performance. 
Students will be introduced to a range of dramatic forms, conventions and aesthetics, which are employed on current London stages. Students will be encouraged to identify trends in productions and analyse the social and cultural contexts through which they are formed and constructed. Students will explore the relationship between contemporary theatre practices and specific periods of theatre history, i.e. the influence of earlier dramatic forms, conventions, contemporary stagings of classics, and contemporary responses and reworkings of the canonical texts/productions. 
The module will focus on plays which are currently running in repertory in the London theatre, the actual content varies from one term to another. Students will have an opportunity to visit the latest productions of major subsidised companies such as the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the Globe Theatre, new-writing theatres such as the Royal Court, through to smaller ‘fringe’ theatres and productions at alternative venues.