MA Creative Producing

(for Theatre and Live Performance)

Introduction

The MA in Creative Producing for Theatre and Live Performance prepares students for professional roles as creative producers in a wide variety of theatre and live performance events including outdoor performance and street arts. 

This specialist Programme is practice-centred and practice-based.  It is firmly rooted in the present-day realities of the role of the professional creative producer, and in the essential blend of personal taste and judgement, practical skills, creative team working, and problem solving needed for that role.  It is based on current industrial practice and has been planned in consultation with a wide range of industry professionals. 

The Programme is designed to appeal to a diverse range of potential students, which is reflected in its diverse content, teaching and assessment methods.

The MA in Creative Producing is operated in association with the Theatre Royal Stratford East [www.stratfordeast.com].  The MA Programme is based at Birkbeck Stratford.  Teaching takes place in Stratford East and Bloomsbury.  

The MA in Creative Producing works in close association with the established Birkbeck MFA in Theatre Directing [www.bbk.ac.uk/study/pg/index.html], allowing students on both Programmes to inter-relate and interact.  

The Programme is structured around three key areas of study and experience 

• creativity and the producer
• the producer’s key skills and competencies
• the producer’s work with people.

The Programme’s special features include the extensive direct input of professional practitioners, the establishment of mentoring relationships between students and committed professional practitioners, and industrial secondment opportunities.   Towards the end of your first term you undertake a month-long industrial secondment within Greater London; and you have the option of undertaking a longer secondment as part of the final dissertation element of the Programme.

To read Lyn Gardner's Guardian blog on the role of the creative producer and this programme please follow this link:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2008/04/for_editors_10.html

A Full-Time Programme

The Programme covers one full year from September to September.  In 2008-09, you will be asked to do some preparation before classes start on Monday 1 September, with full-time attendance from then on through the three academic terms until late May 2009.  Individual work on your ‘Personal Project’ then continues until the final assessment of Units One and Seven in September 2009.

You will normally attend teaching sessions on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays (daytime and evening) at Birkbeck – in Stratford or Bloomsbury - during term-time.  The number of sessions will vary from week to week.  There may occasionally be classes and sessions at other times, but you will always be notified about the times of these well in advance.  In addition you will have to undertake a substantial amount of private work and study originating from these classes and as preparation for future sessions. 

It is possible for a student to study ‘half-time’ by splitting the Programme into two halves and taking it over two years.  However this still requires full-time attendance for Units when it is appropriate during over these two years.  Please do not hesitate to ask if you would like more details about this.     

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