Theatre Studies and Creative Writing with Foundation Year BA (Hons)

Birkbeck, University of London

Do you want to see your stories on stage? Are you fascinated by live performance and the written word? Are you eager to study in central London, at the heart of London's vibrant theatre and literary culture?

If so, the new BA Theatre Studies and Creative Writing with Foundation Year at Birkbeck is ideal for you. In a building that was once home to Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, you will study with leading academics, theatremakers and celebrated published authors across the fields of fiction, poetry and drama.

You will investigate theatre and creative writing in all their aspects: as text, in performance, in their historical contexts, and through a range of techniques and ideas that have informed creative practice in different times and places.

You will get to grips with the craft of writing:

• drama

• poetry

• fiction

• screenwriting.

Before proceeding to the main degree, you will spend your Foundation Year preparing yourself for a degree in the arts by improving your study and research skills and gaining arts-related knowledge and understanding. You will also have the opportunity to take a language module as part of the Foundation Year.

Upon successful completion of the Foundation Year, you can automatically progress on to our three-year, full-time, evening study BA Theatre Studies and Creative Writing.

Our part-time Foundation Year degrees allow you to spread out your Foundation Year studies over two years. As the 'Foundation Year' is made up of 120 credits, as a part-time student you can take 60 credits in each of your first and second years before starting the main four-year BA Theatre Studies and Creative Writing. This means that you can take six years to complete the part-time degree with Foundation Year.

Highlights

• Our Foundation Year programmes will fully prepare you for undergraduate study. They are ideal if you are returning to study after a gap, if you have not previously studied the relevant subjects, or if you did not achieve the grades you needed for a place on your chosen undergraduate degree.

• Birkbeck is located in the heart of literary London - in Bloomsbury, WC1 - and writers and academics maintain strong links with publishers, broadcasters and the creative industries. You could be studying in a building that was once home to Virginia Woolf and frequented by members of the Bloomsbury Group - now home to our School of Arts - and be taught by leading dramatists and artists. The building houses our own creative hub which includes the Peltz Gallery, the Gordon Square Cinema and a theatre and performance space.

• You will be eligible to submit work to the annual Birkbeck creative writing journal, the Mechanics’ Institute Review, the Scratch Night as part of Birkbeck Arts Week, and to attend public events and performances curated by Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre.

• In the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF), English Language and Literature at Birkbeck achieved 100% for a research environment conducive to producing research of the highest quality.

• The School of Arts is an official partner of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. Opportunities for students have included a year’s free membership of the ICA, private views, discounts on all talks and events, free members' screenings and £3 cinema tickets on Tuesdays, up to 25% off ICA Artists' Editions and a monthly e-newsletter.