BA (Hons) Drama and Creative Writing with a Placement Year
Course options
Key Details
- Award
- Degree of Bachelor of Arts
- UCAS Course Code
- WW4P
- Typical Offer
- ABB
- Contextual Offer
- BBC
- Course Length
- 4 years
- Course Start Date
- September 2024
Why you should choose us
Course Overview
This unique degree unites UEA’s strengths in creative writing and in drama to give you an exhilarating immersion in writing and performance.
You will have the opportunity to study all kinds of creative writing, with a particular focus on writing for theatre, cinema, television, and radio. Alongside, you'll be exploring the contemporary practice, criticism, and history of dramatic writing and performance. Your writing will be enriched by an awareness of theatrical and literary traditions from around the globe.
You’ll take practical drama modules, and you’ll have full access to our professionally equipped 200-seat Drama Studio. This comprehensive grounding in acting, directing, and all other aspects of stagecraft will enable you to graduate from this drama and creative writing degree as a writer with an instinctive feel for the world of theatre and performing arts.
You'll gain a thorough grounding in writing for stage and screen, which will be complemented by opportunities to develop your skills in non-dramatic writing, too. Your stage and screen writing will be improved by getting to grips with the ins-and-outs of theatrical performance, while you become better able to analyse dramatic language by writing it yourself.
At the heart of your drama and creative writing degree are scriptwriting masterclasses with practising writers, where you’ll discover the formats, conventions, and techniques of writing for different
dramatic genres and media. You’ll learn by writing scenes and short scripts, offering critiques of each other’s work, and by working closely with other Drama students.
In your second and third years, you'll be able to develop your craft as a writer by taking workshops in prose or poetry, working closely with our world-famous creative writing colleagues.
Throughout your degree, you will gain hands-on experience by participating in production and practical project work. You’ll have the keys to our professionally equipped 200-seat Drama Studio, giving you the chance to control everything in your own productions. You’ll also be able to pursue performance and short-term placement opportunities, including a creative industries internship in your second year, which involves a short-term work placement in a drama-producing organisation or environment.
At UEA, you’ll encounter an astonishing array of drama, theatre and performance. You’ll engage with major theoretical approaches, actor- and director-training, and techniques for creating and writing your own work. You’ll examine the politics of theatre and performance – and its use by the State, by political activists and by theatre and performance practitioners – to solidify or challenge structures of power. You’ll also discover the cutting-edge theatre companies that are shaping the contemporary performance landscape.
You’ll benefit from our highly regarded student run Minotaur Theatre Company, which gives you the chance to gain additional performance, technical and scriptwriting experience, as well as exciting chances to share your writing at events such as New Writing Live. Find out more about life in the School of Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing on our Instagram @uealdc.
On Drama and Creative Writing with a Placement Year, you’ll normally spend 9-12 months of your third year in a placement, gaining invaluable working experience and employability skills in a relevant area of your choice.
Placement Year and Study Abroad
Want to graduate with professional experience? On this course, you will normally spend 9-12 months of your third year* in a placement, gaining invaluable work experience and employability skills in a relevant area of your choice. You will be expected to seek your own work placement, and will be supported in doing so by UEA’s Career Central Service and your School. Support for you to find your placement will start early in the first year and will be tailored to the particular needs you will have at various stages of the process.
The field in which you will do your placement will depend on your own interests, and some of the preparatory workshops will help you have a clearer idea of what these are, what your values are, and which career they may lead to. Drama and Creative Writing graduates go into a wide range of sectors, and so placements can be done in fields such as heritage, business, the public sector, creative industries and many more. We will, however, require that the tasks you will conduct as part of your placement meet the required learning outcomes and are complex enough to help you develop a range of skills that you will be able to translate and use during the final year of your degree and your post-graduation career.
*Placements may be shorter on some occasions, or take place during different years of the degree, but this has to be agreed by the Placement Director and Learning and Teaching Services.
Have a business idea? If you have an idea you think would make a great business, you may be able to turn your Placement Year into a ‘Year in Enterprise’*. Your idea (business plan, budget etc.), motivation and academic record would have to be assessed by our team. Should you be given the go-ahead, you could use the year to start your businesses in a structured and supportive environment, accessing numerous training courses and extensive mentoring.
*Note that if you’re studying with us on a Student Visa, you can’t currently undertake a Year in Enterprise due to Visa rules.
Study and Modules
Structure
Your first year sets up a conversation between writing, doing, and thinking, which continues throughout your degree. You’ll experiment with a wealth of new techniques in dramatic writing while also taking advantage of developmental acting exercises. In addition, you'll start to hone your creative writing across a range of literary forms, as well as develop your performance and technical skills further. You’ll then encounter rich traditions of dramatic writing, exploring how contemporary writers are reimagining or contesting older traditions.
Compulsory Modules
Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, the University will endeavour to consult with students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. In some cases optional modules can have limited places available and so you may be asked to make additional module choices in the event you do not gain a place on your first choice. Where this is the case, the University will inform students.
Teaching and Learning
Teaching
You'll begin your development as a writer in workshops focussed on scriptwriting and other literary forms led by a member of our world-famous creative writing team. Your Drama tutors combine a wealth of practical experience in all kinds of performance with deep academic knowledge of the history, theory, and contemporary practice of theatre. Practical workshops in technical theatre and performance will underpin your development on the stage. You'll get to grips with plays and performance in drama seminars – where you might find yourself workshopping parts for performance in order better to understand them!
Independent Learning
You'll spend time doing everything from reading plays and writing your own scripts to rehearsing parts for the stage, at the same time as benefitting from student-run theatre company, Minotaur, where you can gain even more experience in practical performance or get a chance to turn your own original scripts into productions.
Assessment
Assessment
Our BA Drama and Creative Writing modules do not have written exams (apart from one technical theatre test). As a Creative Writer, in the first year you'll be led through a series of writing exercises and discussions to help you produce a short, complete script as well as short pieces of prose and poetry. The technical theatre skills you're developing will be assessed through tasks such as making a 3D model of a set, designing a costume, or placing mics on a soundstage. Your performance work will be graded, and so will the rehearsals for your end-of-year production, capturing your development in the round.
Feedback
You're given constant feedback on your practical work, helping you to deepen your craft as a performer. You'll receive feedback on your writing from your tutors and your peers in workshops. Feedback on assessed work will be returned within 20 working days (after it has been carefully marked and moderated). As your first year does not count toward your overall degree result, it's the perfect moment to experiment and take risks.
Structure
In your second year, you’ll extend and refine your scriptwriting skills, learning how to write for stage, radio, film, and television. Alongside this, you’ll have an opportunity to tackle poetry or prose writing in a dedicated workshop, and an array of opportunities for practical dramatic work. For example, you can take an internship, engage in outreach work, take modules to build your performance skills for stage and screen, or take innovative modules on directing or devising. You can also choose to study journalism or publishing, or choose modules in literary, film or cultural criticism.
Optional A Modules
(Min Credits: 40, Max Credits: 80)Optional B Modules
(Min Credits: 40, Max Credits: 80)Optional C Modules
(Min Credits: 0, Max Credits: 20)Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, the University will endeavour to consult with students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. In some cases optional modules can have limited places available and so you may be asked to make additional module choices in the event you do not gain a place on your first choice. Where this is the case, the University will inform students.
Teaching and Learning
Teaching
Your creative work will now be taken to the next level through the 'workshopping' process (pioneered in the UK by UEA), where you'll get feedback on your writing from your peers under the direction of one of our creative writing tutors, and learn the art of offering constructive critique of your peers’ writing too. You'll concentrate intensively on scriptwriting (for the stage, radio, TV, and film), and will also have the chance to get to grips with prose or poetry. You'll have a wealth of opportunities to make your own theatre with the support of our staff, experimenting with different directorial theories, developing skills in devising plays, discovering radical performance modes, or delving into political theatre (e.g. Feminist Theatres or Queer Theatre). If you choose to produce work for the screen, you'll be supported by a well-regarded independent filmmaker.
Independent Learning
As you make theatre and performance work with greater confidence, you'll naturally work with greater independence as both a writer and a performer. This might mean deepening your collaborations with your peers or making solo projects that showcase your development as a writer.
Assessment
Assessment
Your creative writing will flourish as you produce more substantial scripts for stage, radio, or screen (around 20-30 minutes in length), and, if you wish, pieces of prose (e.g. a 1250-word short story or longer 2000-word narrative), or a portfolio of poetry. You can try your hand at devised performances and write reflective pieces to understand better your own creative processes. You might write essays on books, performances or plays. You'll continue to be assessed on your practical drama work in all its forms, whether that's acting, directing, filmmaking, technical theatre, or on your collaborative work with an external organisation.
Feedback
Your creative work will be deepened by your immersion in the workshop environment, where you receive feedback from your peers and learn to give feedback on their work, an enormously valuable skill in many careers. Your practical work is constantly enriched by your drama tutors' feedback during rehearsals, and you'll continue to receive advice on 'formative' writing, too, from both your literature and drama tutors.
Structure
Your third year will be spent on your placement, providing you with the opportunity to experience the world of work while applying some of the skills and knowledge you’ve developed during your first two years of study.
Compulsory Modules
Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, the University will endeavour to consult with students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. In some cases optional modules can have limited places available and so you may be asked to make additional module choices in the event you do not gain a place on your first choice. Where this is the case, the University will inform students.
Teaching and Learning
You’ll spend your third year on a placement. You will be responsible for securing the placement, supported by UEA’s well-established connections throughout the UK and beyond. During your placement, you’ll be supported by a placement mentor, who will regularly monitor and review your progress with you, and you’ll have access to remote support from UEA, too, to make sure everything is going smoothly and that you’re getting the most of your experience.
Assessment
You will be asked to reflect on your placement by, for instance, offering a self-appraisal of what you have learnt and demonstrating your broader commercial awareness of your placement’s sector.
Structure
By your final year you will have found your voice as a playwright or screenwriter. You will have the chance to do a Creative Writing Dissertation where, with one-to-one support from your supervisor, you’ll produce a substantial piece of writing, which in most cases will take the form of a script for stage, screen, or radio. Alongside this you can choose from a range of options, either throwing yourself into the final year Drama Production, pursuing an individual drama project, focusing intensively on dramatic literature (via modules on drama and literature, or contemporary drama and film), broadening out into other literary realms, taking a prose or poetry workshop, or studying creative work in the media industries.
Optional A Modules
(Min Credits: 30, Max Credits: 60)Optional B Modules
(Min Credits: 60, Max Credits: 90)Optional C Modules
(Min Credits: 0, Max Credits: 30)Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, the University will endeavour to consult with students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. In some cases optional modules can have limited places available and so you may be asked to make additional module choices in the event you do not gain a place on your first choice. Where this is the case, the University will inform students.
Teaching and Learning
Teaching
Your journey as a writer can be developed through a creative writing dissertation, in which you'll work one-on-one with a member of our creative writing team as you plan, develop, and write a more extended project. You can choose to spend the whole first semester of your fourth year working as part of a near-professional theatre company, where you'll be led by a member of our core Drama teaching team and mentored by professionals in stage management, costume design, set building, movement, and marketing. Or, if you'd prefer, you can pursue a solo venture in our , where you'll be supervised to create an individual performance or film of your devising.
Independent Learning
You'll spend much of your own time writing in the forms that have come to matter to you the most. You'll either collaborate with drive and passion with your peers in the final-year production or bring together everything you've learnt across the degree by working independently on a Drama Project (supervised by a member of our Drama team or a relevant industry professional).
Assessment
Assessment
If you do a Creative Writing Dissertation, you’ll produce a substantial piece of work that truly reflects the writer you’ve become, whether that’s a 60-page script, or a collection of stories or poems. You’ll also write a reflective self-commentary on your creative process. If you choose to be part of the intensive final-year drama production, your rehearsal and technical work will be continuously assessed by the drama tutor who's leading the whole project, and your final performance will be marked, and that mark moderated by an external examiner. You might write academic essays, reflections on your performances, or pieces of creative-critical writing, where you fuse critical with imaginative writing.
Feedback
For your Creative Writing Dissertation, you'll work one-on-one with a member of our creative team, receiving regular feedback on your progress. As well as constant advice on your practical drama work as it develops, you'll receive full written feedback on your assessed final-year practical work, as well as regular feedback on formative written work for all your modules.
Entry Requirements
- A Levels
- ABB If you are taking an EPQ and three A-levels, we may offer you a one grade reduction on our advertised typical offer alongside an A in the EPQ.
- T Levels
- Not accepted
- BTEC
- DDM in an Arts/Humanities subject (usually Performing Arts). BTEC Public Services, Uniformed Services and Business Administration are not accepted. See below for accepted subjects and combinations.
- Contextual Offer
A Level – BBC
BTEC L3 Extended Diploma – DDM
UEA are committed to ensuring that Higher Education is accessible to all, regardless of their background or experiences. One of the ways we do this is through our contextual admissions schemes.
- Scottish Highers
- AAABB
- Scottish Advanced Highers
- BCC A combination of Advanced Highers and Highers may be acceptable
- Irish Leaving Certificate
- 3 subjects at H2, 3 subjects at H3
- Access to HE Diploma
- Access to Humanities & Social Sciences pathway. Pass Access to HE Diploma with Distinction in 30 credits at Level 3 and Merit in 15 credits at Level 3
- International Baccalaureate
- IB 32
- GCSE
You are required to have Mathematics and English Language at a minimum of Grade C or Grade 4 or above at GCSE.
- English Foreign Language
Applications from students whose first language is not English are welcome. We require evidence of proficiency in English (including writing, speaking, listening and reading):
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IELTS: 6.5 overall (minimum 5.5 in all components) for year 1 entry
We also accept a number of other English language tests. Review our English Language Equivalencies for a list of example qualifications that we may accept to meet this requirement.
Test dates should be within two years of the course start date.
If you do not yet meet the English language requirements for this course, INTO UEA offer a variety of English language programmes which are designed to help you develop the English skills necessary for successful undergraduate study:
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- Interviews
Most applicants will not be called for an interview and a decision will be made via UCAS Track. However, for some applicants an interview will be requested. Where an interview is required the Admissions Service will contact you directly to arrange a time.
- Deferred Entry
We welcome applications from students who have already taken or intend to take a gap year. We believe that a year between school and university can be of substantial benefit. You are advised to indicate your reason for wishing to defer entry on your UCAS application.
- Intakes
This course is open to UK and International applicants. The annual intake is in September each year.
Additional Information or Requirements
Extended Diploma: DDM in an Arts/Humanities subject (usually Performing Arts).
Diploma: DD in an Arts/Humanities subject (usually Performing Arts) plus B at A-Level
Extended Certificate: D in an Arts/Humanities subject (usually Performing Arts) plus BB at A-Level
Special Entry Requirements
Candidates who are shortlisted will be asked to provide a sample of their creative writing: we ask for around 5 pages of work, which can be on any subject and in any genre of the candidate's choice. Most choose to send a script, poetry, prose, or a mixture of all three.
If you do not meet the academic requirements for direct entry, you may be interested in one of our Foundation Year programmes such as -
https://www.uea.ac.uk/course/undergraduate/ba-english-literature-with-a-foundation-year
UEA are committed to ensuring that Higher Education is accessible to all, regardless of their background or experiences. One of the ways we do this is through our contextual admissions schemes.
We welcome and value a wide range of alternative qualifications. If you have a qualification which is not listed here, or are taking a combination of qualifications, please contact us via Admissions Enquiries.
International Requirements
We accept many international qualifications for entry to this course. View our International Students pages for specific information about your country.
Admissions Policy
Our Admissions Policy applies to the admissions of all undergraduate applicants.
Fees and Funding
Tuition Fees
View our information for Tuition Fees.
Scholarships and Bursaries
We are committed to ensuring that costs do not act as a barrier to those aspiring to come to a world leading university and have developed a funding package to reward those with excellent qualifications and assist those from lower income backgrounds. View our range of Scholarships for eligibility, details of how to apply and closing dates.
Course Related Costs
Please see Additional Course Fees for details of course-related costs.
How to Apply
Apply for this course through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Services (UCAS), using UCAS Hub.
UCAS Hub is a secure online application system that allows you to apply for full-time undergraduate courses at universities and colleges in the United Kingdom.
Your application does not have to be completed all at once. Register or sign in to UCAS to get started.
Once you submit your completed application, UCAS will process it and send it to your chosen universities and colleges.
The Institution code for the University of East Anglia is E14.
View our guide to applying through UCAS for useful tips, key dates and further information:
Employability
After the Course
Some graduates go into careers in film, drama, radio, and scriptwriting, as writers, developers, agents, casting directors, or artistic directors of their own companies. Recent graduates from our drama degrees include the actor Matt Smith (famous for his portrayal of Doctor Who and his leading roles in The Crown and House of the Dragon), the presenter of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, Greg James, and the playwright Tom Morton-Smith (whose 2015 play Oppenheimer was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company). For others, this degree is a stepping-stone towards careers in the arts, media, publishing, politics, charities, and NGOs, teaching, and the commercial sector.
Our Careers Service is here to support you in launching your career by advising with CV writing, internships, and much more. Every year we run an event, Working with Words, which gives current students the chance to meet and hear from successful UEA alumni from across the creative industries.
UEA also has its own in-house student publishing project, Egg Box, along with many other exciting initiatives that give you opportunities to turn your love of writing and performance into a foundation for your future career.
Careers
A degree at UEA will prepare you for a wide variety of careers. We've been ranked 1st for Job Prospects by StudentCrowd in 2022.
Examples of careers you could enter include:
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Scriptwriting
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Theatre and film
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Journalism
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Media
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Teaching
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Publishing
Discover more on our Careers webpages.