Theatre Directing Master of Fine Arts - MFA (PG)

This MFA Theatre Directing offers you professionally recognised training. The result of a collaboration between Birkbeck and the Arts Council England, Equity and UK Theatre, it gives you a unique opportunity to work with theatre directors, actors, writers and designers, while also preparing you for the realities of working as a director in the industry. To pursue this MFA, you will have directed one or two university or professional-level productions and be focused on becoming a professional theatre director.

Why choose this course?

* This MFA Theatre Directing benefits from unique partnerships with industry bodies and leading practitioners.

* It offers you a three-month secondment to a drama school learning how actors are trained for today’s theatre.

* It also offers you a six-to-nine-month secondment with a theatre company where you will have the opportunity to assist on at least three productions. Collaborators include the Royal Exchange Manchester, Leicester Curve, Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, Octagon Theatre in Bolton, Polka Theatre in London and the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith.

* You will engage in workshops run by expert professionals, including noted practitioners such as Mike Leigh, Mike Alfreds, David Eldridge, Natalie Abrahami and Lyndsey Turner. These concentrate on the director’s relationship with the designer and the writer, to equip you with a practical understanding of how theatre companies and pieces of work are funded and managed.

What will I learn?

On this course you will examine the director’s relationship with key collaborators: the actor, the writer, the designer, the industry and the production.

You will be introduced to a wide range of methodologies and the approaches of leading practitioners to encourage you to develop your own toolkit and unique artistic vision for the work you wish to create. The emphasis throughout is on your creative and intellectual development as an independent artist.

How will I learn?

Classes mostly take place during the day, but with the expectation that you will regularly attend theatre productions.

Teaching on this course, consisting of lectures, seminars, practical classes and tutorials, is designed to enable you to develop creatively and intellectually and become an independent, creative artist able to work in professional theatre.

As well as the secondments at a drama school and a producing theatre, you will attend practical workshops and seminars with leading directors, writers, designers, and casting, movement, intimacy and fight directors. You will also undertake two design projects with designers in training at Wimbledon College of Arts.

Highlights

* Our Centre for Contemporary Theatre runs a postgraduate reading group and offers opportunities to show work in progress as part of our summer festival, Arts Week.

* Birkbeck was ranked 2nd in the UK for its English Language and Literature research in the most recent 2021 Research Excellence Framework.

* We offer a number of bursaries for postgraduate students.

* You may be eligible for the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation Scholarship.

Careers and employability

On graduating from this MFA Theatre Directing, you will have gained an array of important transferable skills, including:

* the skills, knowledge and ability to work as a professional-level theatre director

* the ability to critically reflect on your practice and to evolve your practice as an independent creative artist

* communication and presentation skills

* an ability to work independently and collaboratively.

Possible career paths for graduates include professions such as:

* theatre director

* artistic director

* associate director

* opera director

* theatre producer

* literary manager

* dramaturg.