BA (Hons) Performance: Comedy Practices

International students can apply

This course has a pathway structure; while there are common elements, your study will focus on one of five pathways: Drama and Theatre, Media Performance, Dance Theatre, Contemporary Practices, Comedy Practices.

As a Comedy Practices student, you will learn through a mix of lectures, seminars, workshops and practical performance projects. Assessment will be through a range of means including essays, presentations, in-class performance presentations and publicly performed theatre projects.

YEAR 1

Performance Skills

combines an exploration of key performance approaches with week by week acquisition of warm up methods and voice and movement techniques.

Performance Approaches Workshop

is designed to further develop your performance vocabulary and apply your performance skills to a variety of platforms depending on your pathway (TV/Radio/Live/Site-Specific/Dance Theatre).

Introduction to Performance Practice and Reflection

The module introduces central working practices of professional performers and creators within Comedy Practice. The module focuses on practical, creative approaches to comic and naturalistic characterisation processes.

Performance Practice and Reflection

in semester two will extend your learning to practical skills and creative approaches central to characterisation and comic performance for recorded media. This module involves an exploration of a range of techniques for performing on camera or to the microphone. Both this and the semester one Performance Practice module will also introduce some key techniques of creative reflection, which will develop your ability to think critically about your performance practice and help you identify your individual interests and strengths.

Performance in Context

provides the historical framework to examine the development of performance from the late 19th century onward. Movements like Realism, Expressionism, Surrealism and the Postmodern are examined in relation to other movements and across performance disciplines. Small group seminars appropriate to your pathway will support these lectures.

Critical and Textual Studies

examines key texts and critical approaches central to live performance and media disciplines from the perspective of particular analytical approaches, e.g. semiotics, ideological approaches and structuralism. The theories of key practitioners who influenced the development of particular disciplines will be examined in detail. Small group seminars appropriate to your pathway will support these lectures.

Non-assessed skills training

sessions will be offered appropriate to your pathway.

YEAR 2

All pathways take Performance Studies in Semester 1, when the approaches to textual critical analysis introduced in the first year are further developed.

Other core modules will be offered, dependent on your pathway:

Comedy practices pathway:

Comedy Performance Techniques

You will explore a range of comic concepts, techniques and strategies for creating solo and ensemble comedy performance, stand-up, improvisation, clowning and physical comedy. The module explores the skills needed to be able to act ‘on the spot’ with confidence, to create characters and perform them with confidence and consistency.

Radio Comedy Project

This project is led by a member of staff or a visiting practitioner. You will work in an ensemble to create original comedy sketch ideas and develop your own characters within them. The performance, recording and editing of selected sketches before a live studio audience constitutes the practical element of the assignment.

Comedy Performance and Media

The huge investment by media and entertainment industries in the ‘business of comedy’ is investigated, analysing the ways in which the comic writer and performer must negotiate artistic choices in relation to commercially driven pressures. The module will examine the cultural context in which these commercial considerations operate and the relationship between comedians and comic scriptwriters and the media industry.

Performance Directorate Options

Comedy Writing and Performance

You will discuss examples of a range of radio and TV comedy before working in a small group to create an original comedy idea and to develop your own characters within it. You will be encouraged to develop range and flexibility in your vocal, facial and physical skills in order to produce a range of comic personas. You will then perform, record and edit the resultant TV/radio sitcom or sketch show. The module also examines aspects of storytelling – theme, narrative structure, character development, comic types, the relationship of character to plot, use of subplots - in relation to the writing of comedy drama and situation comedy. The module explores the writing and devising of comedy for recorded media.

Acting For Camera

This module gives you experience of working with ex-broadcast drama scripts, which you will rehearse and record for camera under conditions mirroring industry practice.

Radio Performance and Production

This module enables you to work on a range of exercises designed to develop your characterisation, vocal expression and tonal variety in performing audio drama. You are introduced to studio equipment for recording and editing and contribute to studio management for the assignment. You are assessed on the performance and production of a recorded radio drama script.

Voice, Text, Body

Through exercises and reflective analysis, you will develop vocal and physical technique and learn to apply interpretative skills to the presentation of dramatic text.

Writing for Performance

The module offers you the chance to explore the theory and practice of playwriting and writing for performance, covering concept, story, structure, characterisation, dialogue, theatricality, rewriting and revising.

Singing

The module centres on building confidence in singing and developing your vocal agility through a range of exercises and songs performed in solo and group situations. The module introduces basic musical notation, sight singing, and harmony work and you will also experiment practically with microphone techniques.

Introduction to Scriptwriting

You will examine fundamental aspects of storytelling: narrative structure, character development, character types, relation of character to plot, the use of subplots. You explore differing conceptual and technical approaches in scriptwriting for theatre, TV and film.

Presenting

You will explore performing pieces to camera, engaging with the audience by `breaking through the lens’; interview technique, the importance of asking pertinent questions, listening and putting an interviewee at ease; voice-over work - the importance of performing with energy, clarity and correct intonation. You will produce a five - eight minute magazine item containing an intro, a walk and talk piece to camera, practical exercise or short demonstration, voice-over , researched interview and outro, targeted at a specific audience and presented in an appropriate style.

Gender, Sexuality and Performance

The module examines the importance of gender in the development of contemporary drama and performance. Gender as a social construction is investigated through a series of key movements that reflected a cultural shift in attitudes to heterosexuality and increased awareness of alternative gendered choices in Western culture.

The Avant-Garde

This module focuses on the aims and practices of early 20th century avant-garde movements such as Futurism, Dada and Surrealism, and traces their influence on more contemporary performance practices. You will explore and experiment with the practical techniques developed by practitioners of these movements, in relation to their challenge to naturalist and realist forms.

Physical/Dance Theatres

During this module you are introduced, through reference to specific practitioners, to the theories and practices of western physical/dance theatre. Practitioners and styles covered may include Eurobash and Tanztheatr, e.g. Bausch & Vandekeybus, British Physical/Dance Theatre e.g. DV8, Vincent & Vardimon, along with other international physical practitioners.

Movement for Camera

You will explore the creative and practical elements involved in creating physical performance for the large or small screen. This module will also look at the approaches and works of key practitioners working with movement for the camera. This module will both work with traditional ‘dance for camera’ practitioners, as well as others working in non-naturalistic theatre practices.

Text and Performance

You will explore and analyse some contemporary performance texts. You will be introduced to acting and directing approaches to staging these texts in practical workshops.

TV Genres

This module offers a survey of the different forms TV takes and the many ways in which it is produced and consumed. Soap opera, lifestyle TV, reality shows, game shows, sitcom, series and serial dramas: you will study how each of these genres has its own narrative and projects its own vision on to its audience.

Introduction to Multi-Media Performance

Approaches to multi-media performance are studied, both theoretically and practically. You are introduced to practical techniques and the module is assessed through a devised, multi-media theatre production.

Shakespeare In Performance

This module investigates developments in the staging of Shakespeare from Elizabethan times to the 21st century. Encompassing both live and recorded performances the module encourages you to address particular approaches to Shakespeare presentation (e.g. political, feminist, intercultural) by exploring the works of for example: RSC, Peter Brook, Robert Lepage and Kenneth Branagh.

Approved Special or Applied Practice Project

There is also an opportunity for work placement via an Approved Special Project which allows for more emphasis on applied theatre or public engagement projects off campus.

YEAR 3

You will choose one of the following options:

Applied Comedy Practice

Through class interaction, individual research and tutor supervision, you will be assisted to develop your own comic persona and write original scripts for solo live performance, radio or television. The assignment may consist of a performance at a professional comedy venue or the recording of an original comedy idea for TV or radio.

Exercises are then introduced to develop comic performance, including improvisatory games to prepare you for comedy character construction.

Professional Preparation

You will study and perform a variety of extracts, designed to develop your skills as a developing professional. Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Restoration works as well as contemporary television and radio scripts will be considered. You will be encouraged to experiment with rhythm and language, and to apply characterisation techniques in both naturalistic and non-naturalistic performance styles. Sight-reading skills for audition will be developed. You will thoroughly research the characters, and extracts are rehearsed and directed with the aim of achieving a scale and technical profiency appropriate to the medium and context of performance: stage, camera recording or audio production. Particular attention is paid to the layering of subtext, psychological details and technical, vocal and physical skills, as well as sensitivity to language, particularly heightened language. You will be individually guided on specific strengths and weaknesses, and strategies suggested for development and improvement.

Multi-Media Performance

This module builds on Multimedia Performance 1 and includes investigations of digital culture and the human-computer-interface. This practical project-led module will culminate in a substantial piece of original devised work by the student either working alone or in a defined group with individually specified roles. Post-performance you will write a critical analysis of your work sited within the contextual framework of multimedia performance.

Live Arts

You will examine practices of theatre and performance events that occur in non-traditional theatre spaces and will be introduced to a range of practices and approaches for creating Live Art work. The module will also explore autobiography as primary source material for the development of original Live Art work.

Creative Techniques for Video Drama Production

You will examine specific approaches and processes in direction and production for professional broadcast media. This includes pre-production planning, directing actors, and effective decision-making to ensure fluidity and continuity in editing. You will then develop your knowledge and skills as director, lighting camera-operator/director of cinematography, sound recordist or editor.

Channel M

This module comprises sessions on production technique, including researching for television, producing and directing actors/presenters, producing and directing camera crew (studio and location), managing contributors, televisual grammar, programme structure, copyright issues, health and safety considerations, leading to the team production of weekly programmes, either in studio or on location, researching programmes and briefing studio guests.

Scriptwriting for TV and Film

Through a professionally geared script development programme, you will create first a premise, then treatment, step outline and first draft for a complete screenplay of at least fifty minutes. In seminars you will discuss ideas for story, character and theme within the group.Treatments, step outlines and the first draft are developed in one-to-one tutorials.

You will choose one from the following double modules:

Comedy Project

This project is designed to enable you to work collaboratively in a small group to generate, organise and manage your own performance work. The nature of the performance will be dependent on the individual skills and interests of the project group. Each student in the group takes on a performance and a production role (e.g. actor, dancer, director, scriptwriter, choreographer, designer, stage-manager). You will undertake research appropriate to your project and keep a Personal Learning Journal in order to facilitate reflection and submit a critical analysis which reflects upon the rehearsal and production process.

Theatre Project

Professional Project (Dance Theatre)

This project encourages you to independently utilise the techniques and processes acquired in the second year. You will facilitate your own production, taking on a designated technical role in addition to your performance role.

Video Project

In this project you create two video drama productions under staff supervision. You work in small groups to initiate and produce a major video drama and then crew a second drama. Your work is supported by tutorials and production meetings with a supervisor tutor who also monitors progress in pre- and post-production, and during location shooting.

You will choose either Dissertation or Practical Research Project

Dissertation

You will complete a major piece of independent written work which results from extensive research supervised by a dissertation supervisor. You will undertake your own research and while this will draw on other sources it is expected that the study will display a central thesis of your own construction.

Practical Research Project

PRP is an opportunity for you to develop your own topic or area of practice, conceptual framework, and method of investigation. It may represent a vocational or career-focused endeavour or act as a springboard for postgraduate study. Projects could include: a devised performance; an original script – comic or dramatic - a dance or physical theatre piece, original choreography, an installation, multi-media performance or a directing project.

BA (Hons) Performance: Comedy Practices

YEAR 1

YEAR 2

YEAR 3

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