Major sequences and specialisations

Drama

Drama can be taken as a major sequence within a Bachelor of Arts.

Flinders also offers a Bachelor of Creative Arts, which includes a Drama stream designed for students seeking to be professional performers and directors. Select the appropriate degree for links to the relevant program of study.

COURSE OVERVIEW

It is also possible for selected students to transfer from the BA to the Bachelor of Creative Arts. Each year 30 BA students are invited to undertake Drama Workshop in First Year, alongside the core topic Drama 1. Students who excel in the workshop may be invited to audition to move into the Drama Centre program. In recent years some of our most successful Drama Centre students have been identified via the workshop program.

You do not have to have studied Drama before to be accepted for either the Bachelor of Creative Arts or the BA Drama program and you can apply for both courses - in fact, if you're interested in Drama we suggest you do so.

Both degrees can be taken to honours level, and there are opportunities to move onto a masters or PhD program in Drama.

First Year topics

Drama 1A - First Stages begins with the Classical Theatre of Athens in the 5th century BC, working through to Shakespeare, Moliere, and then the developments of the 19th century with Buchner, Ibsen and Chekhov, playwrights who created much of the theatre we know today. We also look at the 20th century pioneer Bertolt Brecht. In this topic students are introduced to general principles of performance analysis and historical research. Assessment includes essays, tutorial presentations and review writing.

Drama 1B Bodies of Work, examines a range of modern and postmodern texts from the Theatre of the Absurd and the works of Beckett and Ionesco, Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, and the feminist theatre of Caryl Churchill. We also discuss performance for the camera in Television Drama and Cinema and conclude with some recent Australian texts.

Drama Workshop

The program is one of skills training in improvisatory and devised performance. In Semester 1 students prepare rehearsed readings for presentation to the Drama 1 class. Set texts such as Euripides' Medea, Ibsen's A Doll's House, and Brecht's Galileo-A Life are read and rehearsed.

In Semester 2 the workshop begins with preparation and performance of sciences for video registration, before going on with rehearsals for an end-of-term production, often using texts relating to the Drama 1 program.

Second and Third Year topics

Theory topics include Modern and Postmodern Theatre, Shakespeare in Performance, Comedy and Satire, Theories of Performance and live arts in performance.

Second Year drama workshop topics consist of improvisation, Stanislavski workshop and studio workshop. While completion of First Year workshop is a prerequisite to these topics, waivers may be asked for and will be positively considered if space allows. We regard these topics as invaluable to students planning to use drama as a teaching subject in schools.

FURTHER INFORMATION

The Admissions/Prospective Students Office,
Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001
Tel (08) 8201 3074 or 1300 657 671 (local call cost)
Fax (08) 8201 2580
Email: admissions@flinders.edu.au