Are you passionate about live performance and theatre practice? Would you like to study in central London, at the heart of the city’s vibrant theatre culture? Our BA Theatre and Drama Studies with Foundation Year will enable you to investigate the theatre in all its aspects: as live performance, as dramatic text, in its historical contexts, and through a range of practices and ideas that have informed the making and understanding of theatre.

Alongside academic explorations of theatre history, theory and practice, you will create new performance work as a group. Whether devised from scratch, play script, in response to a particular setting, or working under the directorship of a guest artist, your work will ask questions about the world we live in.

To complement your study of theatre, you can choose options in English literature, arts and humanities, creative writing and arts management. Throughout your degree, your work will be informed by visits to some of the world’s most exciting theatre institutions, asking questions about how theatre is presented in London now. The programme does not offer actor training, but the chance to experiment with practices and ideas, to create theatre with a group of like-minded people, and to gain access to knowledge with world-leading academics and artists working in the theatre industry today.

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 and Drama Studies.

• 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.
• 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.
• 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 novelists, 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.
• Based at the heart of one of the world's most exciting cities, we combine lectures, seminars and workshops with visits to theatres and other cultural and artistic institutions, and we frequently collaborate with leading arts, cultural, theatre and dance and performing arts organisations, allowing you to ground your studies in real-world practice. You will be able to attend events and seminars hosted by the Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre, enabling you to hear about and experience the latest research and practice from leading scholars and practitioners in the field.
• 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.

Graduates can pursue careers in education, theatre or the media and creative arts. This degree may also be useful in becoming a journalist, arts administrator, charity officer, theatre director or higher education lecturer.

We offer a comprehensive Careers Service to help you advance your career, while our in-house, professional recruitment consultancy, Birkbeck Talent, works with London’s top employers to help you gain work experience that fits in with your evening studies.