The Annual End of Year Showcase for Drama

Theatre for Young Audiences aims to expand students’ understanding of performance to focus on the specific demands of creating work for young audiences. It develops a range of critical and theoretical perspectives and practical skills that enhance the capabilities developed in earlier parts of the programme. The aim is to produce practitioners who can integrate theory and practice in all that they do.

The module is coordinated by Dr Tom Maguire. He teaches and researches into contemporary performance, particularly in British and Irish theatre. Tom co-edited Theatre for Young Audiences in the UK: a critical handbook (2013) and his monograph Performing Story on the Contemporary Stage was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2015. He serves on the Board of the International Theatre for Young Audiences Research Network and is the Head of the School of Arts and Humanities.

The module engages with a range of theoretical and critical materials that address the analysis of dramatic and narrative structure. Students are given the opportunity to apply those readings to the analysis of dramatic writing in a range of media: film, television, stage and digital games. Students engage in creative writing exercises towards the development of a piece of independent writing.

The module is coordinated by Dr Tanya Dean. She studied at Trinity College Dublin and Yale School of Drama. Her teaching and research interests include dramaturgy, playwriting, contemporary and modern Irish theatre, performance practice, digital theatre and performance, and popular theatre. She has worked extensively as a dramaturg in Ireland and the USA, and serves on the research committee for Waking the Feminists.

A research-led module investigating the conceptualisation and realisation of ritualised forms of theatre, according to the principles of selected modern and contemporary practices in Europe, from French and Russian modernism to Grotowski’s paratheatre and “Art as Vehicle”. The module offers the opportunity to students at an advanced level to consolidate their analytical skills, and to conduct a detailed investigation into complex areas of modern performance theory and practice.

The module is coordinated by Dr Giuliano Campo. He is an Italian performer, director and writer whose research and teaching interests include attention and precision in actor training, world traditional disciplines of the self and theatre anthropology. His works are published in several countries in different languages, such as Italian, Polish, English and Portuguese. Giuliano is the Course Director for Drama.

The culmination of the undergraduate programme is the Independent Project. This is the students’ opportunity to develop research interests of their own, in preparation for postgraduate study; or, as a work-based learning project. The Independent Project develops the students’ ability to work independently and to manage a project to completion. Projects are many and varied from delivering a scheme of work in a school, to developing a design concept, to writing or devising a new piece of performance work. Students negotiate the focus and outcomes of their projects and the ways in which they are assessed.

The module is coordinated by Dr Lisa Fitzpatrick. She has published widely on contemporary Irish theatre, post-conflict theatre, and violence in performance. Her work has been funded by the British Academy and by the Canadian High Commission, and her current project is on gender, violence and the postcolonial.

The technical aspects of all practical work in Drama are supported by the work of Adrian O'Connell. Having returned to education, Adrian graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Drama from Ulster and is currently working part-time on a doctoral research project.