Theatre for Social, Political and Environmental Change

The Major Research Project is the culmination of your studies on the MA Theatre for Social, Political and Environmental Change. It offers an opportunity to conduct extended, specialised research into a topic of your choice.

This module equips students with an understanding of key theories and practices that underpin the use of theatre and performance as a tool for social and environmental change. Topics to be explored might include, for example, environmental practices, activist performance, theatre for development, theatre in education, prison theatre, refugee theatre, live art, site specific theatre, environmentally-engaged postdramatic theatre, intergenerational theatre and more.

Through lectures and seminars, this module will introduce a range of qualitative and creative research methods commonly employed in the arts and social sciences, and discuss their relevance to contemporary theatre and performance practice. This will include considerations of various models of practice-based research, and a critical examination of modes of knowledge production through creative practice.

The module introduces you to the role of management in arts organisations and the systems and processes that are present in these businesses. We will explore the different challenges that arts organisations face and reflect on the implications that this has for traditional management concepts.

This module addresses applied performance projects that are co-created in collaboration with community groups. This may include people living within specific geographic areas, but it might also encompass shared identity traits, experiences, or interests. Students will explore a range of practices that facilitate collaboratively-designed theatre as a means of bringing about positive changes within these communities, and their broader social and cultural settings. Through a consideration of contemporary practitioners from a range of global contexts, students will learn techniques to develop effective community-based projects and to ensure equitable participation and accessibility. Practices studied might cover topics such as intergenerational theatre, street theatre, staged readings, puppetry, participatory arts, storytelling, environmental performance and more. Students will engage with the theories and practices of the module through a combination of lectures, seminar discussions and workshops, culminating in a short community performance project.

Students will be assessed by a combination of essay (50%) and group practical project (50%).

In times when hope and fear about the environmental crisis alternate in our minds, when social and political change play havoc with our interpretation of the historic worlds we inhabit, it is crucial that we examine critically and creatively the ways and means by which such a crisis has come into existence. To do so, the module builds bridges across disciplines.

The module combines a place-based approach (Lancaster, the Morecambe Bay, and the Lake District) and an analytical focus centred on the dissonance and convergence of temporal scales. We seek to answer two questions in close dialogue with students:

• To what extent is the dissonance between the different timescales of the Earth system, the social and built environment, and the human imagination a contributing factor to political inaction and cultural indifference?
• In what ways can we better integrate these timescales while retaining the rigour, criticality, and creativity of the disciplines used to study each?

The module will explore topics such as tidal systems, coasts and estuaries; floods; the rise, fall and rebirth of particular narratives of change; ruins and memory; risk and CO2 trading; glacial archaeology and informality and hope.

This module will equip students with a critical understanding of twentieth and twenty-first century performance practices that respond to anthropogenic climate change. Students will explore a range of theories and practices relating to ecocriticism and environmentalism.

This module examines the ways that performance can reflect, challenge or resist societal norms of gender and sexuality. Students will engage with theories relating to the social construction of gender and sexuality, critically evaluating the applicability of these concepts to contemporary society. Perspectives drawn from feminist, gender, and queer theory will be applied to the discussion and evaluation of contemporary performance examples.