Drama & Theatre Studies (AQA)

We study Drama to appreciate how performance can explore the complexity of human experience. We consider how playwrights have responded to that challenge through their plays and examine the relationship between text and stage. Through disciplined expression and critique of the world of theatre, we aim better to understand our relationships with the ever-evolving world around us.

“Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; but theatre will make you good.”
Terrence Mann

Drama and Theatre Studies offers you an opportunity to learn more about the practical delivery of theatre and the literary construction of dramatic texts. Whether you prefer centre-stage soliloquy, or to hanging back in the chorus, studying the finest playwrights in history alongside the opportunity to perform their work will develop your understanding of the world they inhabited, and how we can interpret it through drama. The course in Drama and Theatre Studies also develops practical, creative and communication skills. Students will extend their ability to create drama, either in a performing or production role, or both at the same time!  

Students will also be required to write about theatre and to develop their powers of analysis to become an informed critic, whatever Samuel Beckett’s view may have been. The course will involve taking part in several drama productions along the way, as well as the deconstruction of the same plays, playwrights and theatre practitioners that we will look to imitate. 

Drama and Theatre Studies complements a range of subjects and is useful in building confidence and improving presentation skills for any profession. Many a barrister will make use of their dramatic training in the courtroom! There are single or combined honours courses in Drama at many high-ranking universities, commonly in conjunction with English. There is, for example, a very good course at Cambridge called English and Drama with Education Studies, which has a strong practical drama component. This can lead to further study in Higher Education, and may lead on to a career in the performing arts. 

Students may, of course, wish to go on to drama schools with a view to entering the theatre, film or television professions and ultimately to building a career in this field.

Drama and Theatre Studies is offered through our association with Westminster School. Lessons will take place at Westminster and places are limited. For further information, please visit their website.