module specification

The Festival Showcase contains your final piece of practical work, the equivalent of a dissertation, and will be a culmination of all the work previously undertaken on the course. It consists of a programme of short theatre, performance, and multimedia productions, which will be presented to a public audience in a professional environment. It is designed to allow you to develop your chosen specialisms, both within creative and production roles.

The module will enable you to complete and showcase a professional level work. You will utilise the ability to work both collaboratively and independently within a self-managed ‘festival’ setting and provide the opportunity for you to cultivate professional skills demonstrating your employability and ability to make your own projects.

The module includes the following areas of work-related learning:

- creating and presenting original performances to an external audience;
- marketing, including the professional use of social media;
- box office and audience management;
- logistics of setting up a company;
- pitching work to producers and programmers;
- writing an agenda and keeping minutes of meetings;
- creating a timetable.

Pre/Co-requisites: SM6025, SM5076 or SM5080, and SM5019 or SM5023

Available for Study Abroad? NO

Following the module SM6015 Performance R&D, students form their own collaborations for the Festival Showcase module. Students pitch their collaborative concepts in an assessed seminar encompassing both academic and artistic presentational skills (LO2). They then continue to develop such concepts into fully realised performances (LO1). Students take on both creative and production roles in order to develop their ability to act as valued company members in a range of capacities and understand that full spectrum of activities required to create a production (LO3). Students may combine and tailor these roles according to their individual works.

The Festival Showcase module is self-produced by students but mentored by staff who act as Artistic Director and Production Manager. (LO4)

Scheduled teaching provides the guidance and foundation to ensure that independent study is effective in addressing the module’s learning outcomes and assessment tasks.

In-class activity makes use of varied student-centred approaches such as active, flipped and blended learning, so that a range of learning strategies is deployed, and individual learning styles are accommodated. Information is provided through a range of means and sources to minimise and remove barriers to successful progress through the module. The course team seeks to embed the University’s Education for Social Justice Framework in fostering learning that is enjoyable, accessible, relevant and that takes account of the social and cultural context and capital of its students.

Activities foster peer-to-peer community building and support for learning. Reflective learning is promoted through interim formative feedback points that ask students to reflect on their progress, receive help where they identify the opportunity for improvement in learning strategies and outcomes and make recommendations to themselves for future development. Throughout the module, students build a body of work, including written reflections on progress and achievement.

The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-based learning within the curriculum supports students’ personal and career development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress from year to year, to understand the professional environment of their disciplines, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions.

On completion of this module you will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

LO1: create, independently and/or in groups, a short theatre and performance work of professional standards;

Cognitive Intellectual Abilities

LO2: present ideas, concepts and practice in a clear, engaging and complex way, suitable for the professional industry;

Subject Specific Skills

LO3: work within a festival production team, according to a set role;

Transferable Skills

LO4: manage your own progress, demonstrating professional awareness and competence.

Assessment in the module is designed to extend the principles of work-related learning upon which its curriculum has been constructed.  Assessment is subsequently practical and takes into account all areas of your contributions to the process of creating your individual Festival piece(s) as well as your work towards developing the Festival as a company endeavour. 

This consists of:

1) Presentation/Exhibit in which you pitch your performance concept to tutors and an invited audience;

2) Festival Contribution: Creative Role as agreed with tutor (creative roles include: performer, writer/dramaturg, director, choreographer and designer); this is assessed through both continuous process and final product;

3) Festival Contribution: Production Role as agreed with tutor (production roles include: stage manager, assistant curator, technical assistant, set and props, costume and makeup, workshop leading, outreach and documentation); this is assessed through both continuous process and final product.

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