Theatre and performance at Bristol is distinctive in its integration of theory and practice through pathways developing performance, research and practice-as-research skills. The broad curriculum balances historical contexts and theoretical perspectives, performance-making and analysis. You’ll study with scholar-practitioners who practice what they teach, from historical costume to immersive arts.

Our students develop excellent transferable skills and pursue careers in diverse fields. As well as careers in theatre and the wider creative industries, our graduates go into education, business, media, government, and medicine.

You'll find Bristol theatre alumni throughout the creative industries, with successful careers as critics, performers, directors, writers, producers, stage managers and designers. Alumni include actors Pearl Mackie, Simon Pegg, Charlotte Ritchie, Luke Thompson, and Joe Alwyn; playwrights David Grieg, Nina Segal, Mark Ravenhill and Laura Wade; and Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Gregory Doran.

In the first year, you will learn how to analyse performance and work with play texts, as well as developing your practical skills in theatre production. In the second and final years you will take a series of units designed to deepen your analytical, critical, practical and historical expertise and skills - as well as exciting optional units.

As part of your final year, you will have the opportunity to complete a capstone Independent Study, which will take the shape of a group performance project, an individual dissertation or a practice-as-research investigation. You will also have the opportunity to undertake professional development with a local, national, or even international partner.

You can combine theatre studies with film, English, Liberal Arts or innovation, or study theatre and a modern language to spend your third year abroad. To find out more about studying abroad, visit the Centre for Study Abroad. 

Sample units may include:

• Clowning Through History
• Performing the Archive
• Creative Technologies
• Early Modern Performance Practices.

Bristol is an exciting place to be a theatre student. Theatres, venues and festivals around the city stage a huge variety of performances of every genre, enhancing and broadening your studies with access to cutting-edge drama.

There is also a huge range of student societies to get involved in, from the Theatre department's in-house student led company, InterAct, to the established DramSoc and Spotlights, Bristol Improv, PantoSoc, Music Theatre Bristol, and the Stage Technicians' Association.