Overview
You can apply for this course as an MA (1-year course) or an MFA (2-year course). The MFA takes one extra year, and you can apply by choosing the MFA option when you click 'apply'. The MFA focuses on your creative practice in the second year.
The MA Acting for Stage and Screen is an innovative professional training course in stage and screen acting. If you're interested in learning how to start acting for stage and screen, this course offers a comprehensive pathway to develop your skills and craft.
You will undertake practice-led learning and research alongside leading industry professionals. You will immerse yourself in developing and enhancing professional techniques in acting, text, voice, movement, and performance for stage and screen. This programme is for individuals aiming for a Master’s in acting for stage and screen, providing a well-rounded education for future actors.
Our goal is to develop flexible and versatile actor-entrepreneurs who are empowered through mastery of their craft across diverse mediums, spaces, and platforms.
From the initial idea through to performance or screening, we will encourage and support you in finessing your craft. You will deepen your understanding of your creative, collaboration, performance, and research processes.
We will support you in directing your development and research process to leverage your creative toolkit of skills for a wide range of professional contexts. The acting for stage and screen postgraduate course will help refine your professional approach across the industry.
This course is in Clearing
Our LLM course is a top choice
UEL’s LLM programme has been recognised as a top choice in the latest PTES survey, achieving 1st place rankings for satisfaction, teaching and more.
Performing Arts postgraduate courses at UEL
At The University of East London we offer a range of postgraduate degrees in our Performing Arts department - designed to help you become a skilled, reflective practitioner in your chosen field.
What makes this course different

Ideas focused
This acting course supports your development as a creative actor-preneur, providing opportunities for you to originate and apply skills and ideas across a wide range of professional contexts.

Inclusive approach
We value diversity and a richness of skills and ideas from across a spectrum of social, cultural, creative and professional practices. We recognise all work for its potential to create an impact.

Adaptable across disciplines and professional contexts
Develop professional techniques in acting for stage and screen. Gain cross-disciplinary skills and competencies. Originate, adapt and apply your skills across many different professional contexts.
Course modules
The MA Acting for Stage and Screen course takes a theory-through-practice-based approach as we explore different approaches to acting across a range of different media. From acting to the camera to acting on stage, or acting across digital media, you will develop a personal interdisciplinary acting toolkit. You'll develop the necessary industry-facing materials needed for a career in the twenty-first-century theatre industry.
NOTE: Modules are subject to change. For those studying part time courses the modules may vary.
Download course specification
What we're researching
The results of the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), a six-yearly national review of higher education research, underlined the quality and impact of our work. An impressive 92 per cent of UEL's overall research was recognised as world-leading, internationally excellent or internationally recognised (REF 2021).
Dr Tom Drayton’s research into metamodern theatre, for instance, is world-leading and he is the author of the first book about metamodern theatre; Dr Evi Stamatiou’s influential work on actor training and inclusive pedagogies is built on two decades of international experience as an actor and creative; Carrie Mueller’s research focuses on participatory performance practice with a focus on dissensus and transgression; and Dr Claudia Brazalle’s scholarship and ongoing bodily/movement practice are deeply influenced by her cross-cultural dance and performance training.
Our arts department fosters a vibrant and collaborative research community, including our Centre for Inclusion and Creative Practice, Centre for Creative and Cultural Practice and Centre for Social Change and Justice. Additionally, we place importance on the development from postgraduate study to further research for those interested in continuing their academic journeys – postgraduate students contribute to our cross-institutional Research Roundtables and public student-led conferences, too.
Find out more about ACI research and our postgraduate research.
Your future career
We offer dedicated career support, and further opportunities to thrive, such as volunteering and industry networking. Our courses are created in collaboration with employers and industry to ensure they accurately reflect the real-life practices of your future career and provide you with the essential skills needed. You can focus on building interpersonal skills through group work and benefit from our investment in state-of-the-art facilities.
Industry links
Our academic staff are professionals in the acting field. As such, the course is built upon current industry experience through the network of industry links within the London theatre scene and beyond.
Previous collaborations over the past few years have included work with Camden People’s Theatre, The V&A, The Space, Applecart Arts, Ardent Theatre Company, The Old Church, The Bread & Roses Theatre and more.
Graduate employers
London’s theatre scene is like nowhere else in the world, and our acting postgraduate course sets you up to take your own place in the contemporary creative industries. Graduates of this course have joined theatre companies and collectives, worked in London theatres, taught drama at various levels and gone on to further postgraduate study.
Job roles
Graduates of this course have gone on to become professional stage actors, professional screen actors, and actor-entrepreneurs with their own solo performance works.
Explore the different career options you can pursue with this degree and see the median salaries of the sector on our Career Coach portal.
Further study
After studying your Master's or MFA in Acting for Stage and Screen, you could go on to further study with our postgraduate research courses:

It’s allowed me to develop because it’s enabled me to work with people from all different walks of life.Graduate
MA Acting for Stage and Screen, 2022
How you'll learn
This acting course will develop dynamic and adaptable actors for stage and screen, who can work across traditional and non-traditional contexts. If you pursue a Master’s in acting for stage and screen, you'll learn advanced technical and creative skills relevant to your specialist focus within professional practice. Core skills will be developed through collaboration and application across all programme pathways.
Study will be practice-led, with a focus on developing a range of research skills and models for creative practice, applied in diverse professional contexts. You'll also practice contextual awareness and responsiveness, examining the influence and impact of your acting work in social, cultural, and ethical contexts.
Guided independent study
When not attending timetabled lectures or workshops, you will be expected to continue learning independently through self-study. This will typically involve skills development through online study, reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group acting projects and preparing coursework assignments and presentations. Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities including online resources, and specialist facilities, such as game labs, the library, the full Microsoft Office software, including MS Teams, and Moodle: our Virtual Learning Environment.
Academic support
Our academic support team provides help in a range of areas - including learning and disability support.
You'll learn from, and work with, staff who are both academics and professional actors with industry knowledge.
Dedicated personal tutor
When you arrive, we'll introduce you to your personal tutor. This is the member of staff who will provide academic guidance, be a support throughout your time at UEL and who will show you how to make the best use of all the help and resources that we offer.
Workload
Project development, outcomes, and impact will be captured by:
- Interactive portfolios
- Literature reviews
- Critical evaluation
- Research and development repositories
- Presentation, workshops, and seminars
- Reflective journals
- Collaborative practice-led research
Details of the requirements and content for portfolios and assessments will be provided in guides for each module.
Portfolios will take the form of digital and physical documents presented online using web publishing tools and or physical portfolios that have been printed and curated into a portable portfolio. From this practice, you will demonstrate and reflect upon the process of creating and preparing a body of acting work for professional display, and further development in production and or industry.
Your timetable
Your individualised timetable is normally available to students within 48 hours of enrolment. Whilst we make every effort to ensure timetables are as student-friendly as possible. For our Postgraduate performing arts courses, seminars are scheduled in the evenings between 17:30 and 21:30 to enable study alongside work. Timetables for part-time students will depend on the modules selected.
Class sizes
To give you an indication of class sizes, we usually recruit around 15 students per year. You will attend lectures and seminars together and regularly work in smaller groups and individually in workshops and practical sessions.
How you'll be assessed
This is a practice-based and industry-focused postgraduate acting programme with a weighting of roughly:
- 70% process, performance and production
- 30% critical reflective writing
Depending on your course modules, your assessments may include coursework essays, collaborative and individual presentations, professional placements, reports, portfolios, other creative work and, of course – most importantly – performances.
Campus and facilities
Our campus and the surrounding area
University Square Stratford is one of London's most modern and well-equipped campuses. It serves 3,400 students and is the base for our courses in law and criminology, dance and performing arts, and the Master of Business Administration (MBA).
Modern facilities include: performing arts spaces; three performance studios; the Harvard lecture theatre, with live lecture capture technology; the multimedia Weston Learning Centre; a dedicated MBA suite and teaching space; a 300-seat specialised tiered lecture; and a simulated courtroom for mooting experience.
The campus is close to new Stratford developments such as Westfield Stratford City, and next door to the Theatre Royal and Picturehouse cinema.
Who teaches this course
This course is delivered by the School of Arts and Creative Industries
The teaching team includes qualified academics, practitioners and industry experts as guest speakers. Full details of the academics will be provided in the student handbook and module guides.
- Course leader
Carrie Mueller
Department of Music, Writing & Performance, School Of Arts And Creative Industries - Course leader
Tom Drayton
Acting, Performance and Directing, School Of Arts And Creative Industries - Course leader
Dr Claudia Brazzale
Department of Music, Writing & Performance, School Of Arts And Creative Industries - Course leader
Evi Stamatiou
School of Arts and Creative Industries, School Of Arts And Creative Industries
What our students and staff say

I can't think of a more exciting place to start your career, build your networks and access world-class professional theatre than in East London.
Professor Dominic Hingorani

I have really enjoyed sharing some modules with students from other programmes; it allows us to foster collaborations both for the final project but also for the future.
MA Acting for Stage and Screen student, 2023