Manchester has a worldwide reputation for the quality of its research into Performance, Applied Theatre and Screen Studies. We have some of the country's leading researchers and practitioners of drama who publish regularly and seek to promote a research culture at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Drama was established at The University of Manchester in 1961 as the result of a generous gift from Granada Television. Our work can be divided into three main areas in both research and teaching: Theatre and Performance Studies, Applied Theatre and Screen Studies (including practice). These areas are complementary and integrated within the curriculum. Drama is housed within The Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama which includes a studio space, the John Thaw Studio Theatre, the Cosmo Rodewald concert hall, screening facilities and the specialist Lenagan Library.
We offer degrees in Drama, Drama & English and Drama & Screen and MAs in Theatre and Performance, Applied Theatre and Screen Studies (these recruit between 20 and 25 students per year) as well as a pioneering Professional Doctorate Programme in Applied Theatre. We also have a large and active cohort of PhD students.
The academic staff is currently comprised of three professors (Professor Maggie B.Gale, Professor James Thompson and from July 2012, Professor Steve Bottoms), eight senior lecturers/lecturers (Rajinder Dudrah, David Butler, Ann Featherstone, Jenny Hughes, Alison Jeffers, Johannes Sjöberg, Victoria Lowe, Simon Parry (also in the Institute for Cultural Practices), and an RCUK Fellow in Screen (Felicia Chan) as well as a number of part-time staff.
Drama regularly invite visiting professionals from the creative arts industries to work with our students in areas of practice - recent staff include Fiona Buffini (director), David Eldridge, Amanda Dalton and Charlotte Keatley (playwrights), Gilly Adams (radio producer), Carran Waterfield (Triangle Theatre), Artizani and Susan Swanton (physical theatre artists), TiPP (Theatre in Prisons and Probation). We have three Emeritus Professors who maintain both teaching and research links with the discipline at Manchester (Viv Gardner, Tony Jackson and David Mayer).
Our ResearchDrama has hosted a number of recent AHRC and Leverhulme Trust research projects - 'In Place of War' (2004-11) and 'Performance, Learning and Heritage' (2005-8). As well as securing network development funding from the Leverhulme Trust, the 'In Place of War' project was recently awarded the Times Higher 'Excellence and Innovation in the Arts Award(2010) and a further AHRC grant to develop online and digital networking in 2012.
Drama was highly successful as the second highest scoring Drama department for research in the UK in the 2008 RAE, with 85% of its research ranked in the top two categories of 4* and 3*.
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