Drama, Theatre and Performance BA (Hons)

Modules

We’re planning to run the modules listed below in the academic year 2026/27. We’ve made some changes to keep the course fresh and future-facing.

• What’s changed on this course?

  Year 1

  • The core module Staging Plays (2026/27) used to be titled Making Performance: Plays (2025/26).
  • The core module Burning to Read (2026/27) used to be titled Introduction to Performance Theory (2025/26).

  Year 2

  • The core module Contemporary Performance Project (2026/27) used to be titled Making Performance: Practitioners (2025/26).
  • The core module Critical Theory and Performance (2026/27) used to be titled Critical Thinking and Performance (2025/26).
  • The core module Theatre at Work (2026/27) used to be titled Theatre for Changing Times (2025/26).
  • The two elective slots have been removed to give you more space to choose from our exciting range of options.

  Year 3

  • The year-long optional module Drama Dissertation (2026/27) used to be two shorter modules titled Performance and Research, and IRP: Drama Dissertation (2025/6).
  • The year-long optional module Final-Year Performance Festival (2026/7) used to be two shorter modules titled Making Performance: Expanding Practice, and IRP: Practice (2025/6).

• Year 1 at Sussex

  Your modules

  Core modules

  Core modules are taken by all students on the course. They give you a solid grounding in your chosen subject and prepare you to explore the topics that interest you most.

  Autumn teaching

  • Staging Plays
  • Theatre and Ideas

  Spring teaching

  • Making Performance
  • Theatre at Work

  Your degree

  From the beginning of your degree you’ll combine creative and critical practice. You’ll collaborate in the studio and gain foundational skills by staging plays and experimenting with new forms. You’ll explore theatre as a dynamic source of social and political ideas, and develop insights into theatre in the world of work.

  Teaching

  Teaching methods typically include practical workshops and seminars, alongside regular theatre visits and discussions with artists and cultural leaders.

  

  40%: Seminar
  50%: Practical
  10%: One-to-one

  Assessment

  Assessment methods typically include practical performance, presentations and written coursework.

  Contact hours and workload

  This year of study includes approximately 1,200 hours of work. This breaks down into about 250 hours of contact time and about 950 hours of independent study.

  Engage and actively participate throughout your studies to get the most out of your course. 

• Year 2 at Sussex

  Your modules

  Core modules

  Core modules are taken by all students on the course. They give you a solid grounding in your chosen subject and prepare you to explore the topics that interest you most.

  Autumn teaching

  • Critical Thinking and Performance
  • Making Performance: Practitioners

  Options

  Alongside your core modules, you can choose options to broaden your horizons and tailor your course to your interests. This list gives you a flavour of our options, which are kept under review and may change, for example in response to student feedback or the latest research.

  While it’s our aim for students to take their preferred combinations of options, this can’t be guaranteed and will be subject to timetabling. Options may be grouped and if so, students will be able to choose a set number of options from the selection available in any particular group.

  Autumn teaching

  • Acting: The Process
  • Adaptation: Filming Fiction
  • Debates in Screen Documentary
  • Film Musicals
  • History and Practice of Songwriting
  • In the Embers of Empire: Reading Postcolonial Texts Today
  • The Art of Short Fiction
  • Word & Image
  • Writing Fiction

  Spring teaching

  • British Cinema
  • Chinese Cinema
  • Directing Screen Performance
  • History of English
  • Latin American Cinema: Contemporary Trends and Movements
  • Performing Practices
  • Picasso to Kahlo: Transatlantic Dialogues
  • Pop Life: After Modern Art
  • Queer Brighton and Sussex: Histories, Heritage, and Aesthetics
  • Right Here! Right Now! Twenty-First Century Literature and Culture
  • Staging the Renaissance: Shakespeare
  • Writing for Theatre
  • Writing Poetry

  Your degree

  You’ll encounter new genres of contemporary practice and pursue specialist skills. This might include performing, or writing for performance. Our diverse range of options allows you to pursue your personal interests.

  Teaching

  Teaching methods typically include practical workshops and seminars, alongside regular theatre visits and discussions with artists and cultural leaders.

  

  40%: Seminar
  50%: Practical
  10%: One-to-one

  Assessment

  Assessment methods typically include practical performance, presentations and written coursework.

  Contact hours and workload

  This year of study includes approximately 1,200 hours of work. This breaks down into about 250 hours of contact time and about 950 hours of independent study.

  Engage and actively participate throughout your studies to get the most out of your course. 

• Experience Year

  Study abroad (optional)

  Apply to study abroad – you’ll develop an international perspective and gain an edge when it comes to your career. Find out where your course could take you

  If your application to study abroad is successful, you’ll have to meet the academic requirements at Sussex and also at the partner university. Find out more about studying abroad as a Sussex student

  Placement (optional)

  To help you gain experience and increase your employability, you can apply for an optional placement as part of your course. You’ll be responsible for applying for and securing your placement. Our dedicated careers team can provide you with information and advice. If you’re successful in obtaining a placement, this will form part of your course.

  Find out more about placements and internships

  Please note that if you’re receiving – or applying for – USA federal Direct Loan funds, you can’t transfer to the version of your course with an optional study abroad period in any country or optional placement in the USA if the number of credits for the placement/internship exceeds 25% of the total credits for your course. Find out more about American Student Loans and Federal Student Aid

• Year 3 at Sussex

  Your modules

  Core modules

  Core modules are taken by all students on the course. They give you a solid grounding in your chosen subject and prepare you to explore the topics that interest you most.

  Autumn and spring teaching

  • Independent Research Project: Professional Work Experience

  Options

  Alongside your core modules, you can choose options to broaden your horizons and tailor your course to your interests. This list gives you a flavour of our options, which are kept under review and may change, for example in response to student feedback or the latest research.

  While it’s our aim for students to take their preferred combinations of options, this can’t be guaranteed and will be subject to timetabling. Options may be grouped and if so, students will be able to choose a set number of options from the selection available in any particular group.

  Autumn and spring teaching

  • Final Year Performance Festival
  • Independent Research Project: Dissertation

  Autumn teaching

  • Art and Politics in Britain 2008-Now
  • Cinema and Migration
  • Histories of Women in Music
  • Mediterranean Fantasies: Revivals and Utopias, 1919-1939
  • Pop Soundtrack Cinema
  • Public Relations
  • Race and Ethnicity in Popular Cinema
  • Topics in African American Literature
  • Video Games: Writing, World-Building
  • Viewing Women
  • Writing Race, Gender, and the Social: Experiments Beyond Representation

  Spring teaching

  • American Teen Cinema: Coming of Age on Screen
  • Cinema and Sexualities
  • Decolonial Literature, Politics, Writing
  • Film and Revolution
  • Gender, Race and Society in Early Modern Drama
  • Modern Nature
  • Queer Fictions
  • Site Specific Project
  • Something Else! Writing Adaptations & Transmedia Stoytelling
  • Writing the Environment

  Your degree

  Year 3 is all about specialisation, leadership, and your interests as an artist, thinker and theatre professional.

  The focus is on your professional ambitions, building networks and establishing your artistic identity. You’ll develop a significant artistic or critical project. And you’ll gain professional experience in live workplace environments.

  Teaching

  Teaching methods typically include practical workshops and seminars, alongside regular theatre visits and discussions with artists and cultural leaders.

  

  40%: Seminar
  50%: Practical
  10%: One-to-one

  Assessment

  Assessment methods typically include practical performance, presentations and written coursework.

  Contact hours and workload

  This year of study includes approximately 1,200 hours of work. This breaks down into about 250 hours of contact time and about 950 hours of independent study.

  Engage and actively participate throughout your studies to get the most out of your course. 

Customise your course

• Progressive Futures electives

  Year 1

  Autumn teaching

  • Digital and Data Futures
  • Environmental Sustainability
  • Human Flourishing

  Spring teaching

  • (Re)Imagining Future Worlds through Humour and Play
  • Adapting Literature
  • American Political Culture
  • Art and Artists
  • Black British History
  • Climate Justice: Policy & Activism in a Time of Global Crisis
  • Gender Across Cultures
  • Gendering the Life Course
  • Global Cultures, Local Lives
  • Global Issues
  • Global Migration in a Digital Age
  • Inclusive Practice with Young People
  • Introduction to Human Rights
  • Introduction to the European Union
  • Leading Social Change: Communication and Activism
  • Mental Health and Madness: exploring socio-cultural approaches
  • Music and Society
  • People, Culture and the Global Economy
  • Principles of Cognitive Science
  • Psychology Now: Contemporary Approaches to Understanding Behaviour
  • Society, State and Humanity
  • The Age of Adolescence: Reading 20th Century Youth Culture
  • The Look of America
  • The Meaning of Life
  • Understanding the Criminal Justice System

  Year 2

  Autumn teaching

  • Access, Equity and Gender
  • Analysing Film (E)
  • Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Law
  • Biological Psychology
  • Business in World Politics
  • Crime and Criminal Justice
  • Decoding Cultures of Technology and Social Change
  • Feminist Philosophy
  • Forest Food Gardens: The Theory and Practice of Food Growing
  • Global News Cultures
  • Inclusion, Diversity and Equity in Education
  • Inter-cultural Encounters
  • Landscapes of Resistance and Social Justice
  • Leading Social Change: Taking Action
  • Migration, Identity and Rights
  • Police and Policing (Elective)
  • Political and Social Change in Contemporary Europe
  • Race and Ethnicity in US History
  • Sleep and Mental Health
  • Sustainability and Climate Justice
  • Video Games: Creative & Critical Writing

  Spring teaching

  • Activist Skills for Global Justice and Sustainable Futures
  • Advertising (E)
  • American City
  • Autism and Education
  • Clinical Psychology and Mental Health
  • Contemporary Issues in Law
  • Creative Coding
  • Creative Production in the Arts
  • Decolonising Education: Knowledge, Power and Sustainable Societies
  • Digital Law Toolkit
  • Education, Peacebuilding and Conflict
  • Everyday Digital: Generation, Life-Course and Expertise
  • Exploring Death and Dying; Cultural, Theoretical and Practice Perspectives
  • Exploring Teaching in Schools
  • Forest Food Gardens: Communities, Ecologies and Collaboration
  • Language, Identity and Nation
  • Language, Mind and Brain
  • Making Sense of Complexity: Tools for Addressing Real World Sustainability Challenges
  • Philosophy of Race
  • Psychology of Cognitive Processes
  • Punishment and Penology
  • The Far Right and the Politics of Immigration
  • The Liberal World Order - in Crisis
• Languages and TESOL electives

  You can choose to study language electives for two or three years. This allows you to add the language to the title of your degree:

  • if you study a language for two years, you could graduate with a title such as Psychology with proficiency in Japanese BSc (Hons)
  • if you study a language for three years, you could graduate with a title such as Psychology with Japanese BSc (Hons).

  Year 1

  Autumn teaching

  • Arabic Beginners A
  • Arabic Intermediate A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2A
  • Chinese Beginners A
  • Chinese Intermediate A
  • French Beginners A
  • French For Professional Purposes 1A
  • French Intermediate A
  • German Beginners A
  • German Intermediate A
  • Introduction to TESOL - Theory and Methodology 1
  • Italian Beginners A
  • Italian Intermediate A
  • Japanese Beginners A
  • Japanese Intermediate A
  • Spanish Beginners A
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1A
  • Spanish Intermediate A

  Spring teaching

  • Arabic Beginners B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2B
  • Chinese Beginners B
  • Chinese Intermediate B
  • French Beginners B
  • French For Professional Purposes 1B
  • French Intermediate B
  • German Beginners B
  • German Intermediate B
  • Italian Beginners B
  • Italian Intermediate B
  • Japanese Beginners B
  • Japanese Intermediate B
  • Spanish Beginners B
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1B
  • Spanish Intermediate B
  • TESOL Teaching Practice 1

  Year 2

  Autumn teaching

  • Arabic Advanced A
  • Arabic Beginners A
  • Arabic Intermediate A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2A
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 3A
  • Chinese Advanced A
  • Chinese Beginners A
  • Chinese Intermediate A
  • French Advanced A
  • French Beginners A
  • French For Professional Purposes 1A
  • French for Professional Purposes 2A
  • French Intermediate A
  • German Advanced A
  • German Beginners A
  • German Intermediate A
  • Introduction to TESOL - Theory and Methodology 1
  • Italian Advanced A
  • Italian Beginners A
  • Italian Intermediate A
  • Japanese Advanced A
  • Japanese Beginners A
  • Japanese Intermediate A
  • Spanish Advanced A
  • Spanish Beginners A
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1A
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 2A
  • Spanish Intermediate A
  • TESOL Theory and Methodology 2

  Spring teaching

  • Arabic Advanced B
  • Arabic Beginners B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • Arabic Intermediate B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 1B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 2B
  • British Sign Language and Deaf Culture 3B
  • Chinese Advanced B
  • Chinese Beginners B
  • Chinese Intermediate B
  • French Advanced B
  • French Beginners B
  • French For Professional Purposes 1B
  • French for Professional Purposes 2B
  • French Intermediate B
  • German Advanced B
  • German Beginners B
  • German Intermediate B
  • Italian Advanced B
  • Italian Beginners B
  • Italian Intermediate B
  • Japanese Advanced B
  • Japanese Beginners B
  • Japanese Intermediate B
  • Spanish Advanced B
  • Spanish Beginners B
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 1B
  • Spanish for Professional Purposes 2B
  • Spanish Intermediate B
  • TESOL Teaching Practice 1
  • TESOL Teaching Practice 2

These electives are designed to help you explore key global challenges with world-leading experts from across the University and beyond.

Whichever path you take, you’ll develop key skills to tackle the complexity of contemporary challenges. This will help improve your employment prospects and help you contribute to creating progressive futures for all.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2026/27. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.

We’ll do our best to provide as much optional choice as we can, but timetabling constraints mean it may not be possible to take some module combinations. The structure of a small number of courses means that the order of modules or the streams you choose may determine whether modules are core or optional. This means that your core modules or options may differ from what’s shown here.