- Overview
- Course modules
- Entry requirements
- What makes this course different
- Accreditations
- What we're researching
- Your future career
- How we support your career ambitions
- Careers Guarantee
- What you'll learn
- How you'll learn
- How you'll be assessed
- Campus and facilities
- Who teaches this course
- Testimonial
- FAQs
Overview
If you want to use theatre in socially specific ways – as educative experiences, as moments of cultural exchange, or to help social groups narrate – then, UEL’s MA Applied Theatre gives you the skills to make a social difference.
This MA gives you the opportunity to build your cultural practice through real-world projects and professional placements. You will learn from experienced practitioners while working in live social and cultural settings.
The programme is shaped by the vibrant cultural communities of East London and is closely connected to local creative practice through Source, UEL's arts and youth venue.
Using theatre as a tool for social change, you will strengthen your performance-making skills through participatory, collaborative and educational approaches. You will explore how applied theatre responds to major social issues, including racism, gender inequality, poverty, migration, health, disability and environmental challenges.
The MA is organised for practitioners of theatre with an interest in social engagement, and practitioners with backgrounds in social fields seeking skills in creative methods.
The programme will prepare you to:
- Develop your practices and skills in socially engaged theatre contexts
- Facilitate and create projects in the expanded field of theatre
- Identify emerging social questions interpreting them through performance
- Act critically and responsibly as a socially engaged practitioner in a world imagined through networks of care and solidarity.
- Plan, deliver and evaluate your own projects
Taught in the evenings, our Applied Theatre Masters programme is a one-year postgraduate degree.
*Overall positivity using the Times Higher Education methodology, on student samples over 1,000 and out of all Universities UK members.
This course is in Clearing
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Course modules
The programme shares modules with MA Acting for Stage and Screen and MA Directing for Stage and Screen. Through modules such as Research Methods, Practitioners and Praxis and Project Platform, you will have the choice to work across disciplines exchanging skills with theatre and film-makers interested in social practices. The MA in Applied Theatre offers placements in community, organisational, institutional, or municipal contexts that are critically engaged with society. A defining feature of your studies, placement learning enables investigation into your specific interests through practitioner-led experiences that enhance your professional practice.
NOTE: Modules are subject to change. For those studying part time courses the modules may vary.
Download course specification
Entry requirements
What makes this course different

Independent projects and placements
Practice-led placements in a variety of settings, including established theatre companies.

Flexible study
Offered as evening study for students who are working or have family commitments.

Interdisciplinary practice
Work with students of Contemporary Performance Practices and Acting and Directing for Stage and Film.
Performing arts 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 we're researching
At the University of East London, we are working on some of the big issues that will define our future; from sustainable architecture and ethical AI, to health inequality and breaking down barriers in the creative industries.
Our students and academics are more critically engaged and socially conscious than ever before. Discover some of the positive changes our students, alumni and academics are making in the world.
Please visit our Research section to find out more.
The MA Applied Theatre is affiliated with the Centre for Social Change and Justice at UEL where research on emerging critical social questions is carried out. As part of your postgraduate studies in applied theatre, you will participate in seminars at the centre.
Course leader, Dr. Lynne McCarthy, currently researches the housing crisis exploring its representations in social performance and engages with nomadic groups through socially-turned performance on questions of mobility. She is interested in the intersection of law and performance and has worked on performance based feminist approaches in the Irish context of reproductive choice.
Liselle Terret is a neuro-divergent performance artist and director of Not Your Circus Dog Collective (2018), a subversive crip queer learning disabled and neuro-divergent performance company. She also makes feminist crip performance as Doris La Trine, re-performing mis-understandings and discrimination surrounding eating disorders.
Your future career
This applied theatre programme prepares you for a variety of careers in socially engaged theatre-making. Applied theatre postgraduates generally work in the creative sector or in social fields where creative interventions are supported. Graduates in applied theatre are also encouraged to design and fund their own projects with communities and to pursue PhD studies.
Industry links
Our academic staff are professionals in the field and the programme is weighted towards placement learning helping you to create connections to applied theatre companies in London, nationally and internationally. Our links with Applied Theatre India provide annual cultural exchange projects for students. Previous collaborations have taken place with the V&A, Theatre Troupe, Collective Encounters, Synergy, Tie Dye, Learning Stages, The Clod Ensemble, Islington People’s Theatre and London Renters Union.
Graduate employers
East London Drama Teachers and Facilitators Network is hosted by UEL’s MA Applied Theatre, Creative Newham and EastEd. The network is formed of independent creative facilitators across the borough of Newham helping to connect, sustain and build your professional practice after your postgraduate.
Applied theatre plays an important role in the UK theatre sector. Rooted in a long history of community arts and theatre-in-education, it demonstrates how performance can support learning, strengthen communities and drive social change. The MA Applied Theatre offers placements in community, education, charity, or municipal contexts. A defining feature of your studies, placement learning and experiences enhance your professional practice while connecting you to sector.
Job roles
Graduates of MA Applied Theatre can typically (but are not limited to) work across areas such as:
- Theatre for young people
- Disability arts
- Theatre outreach work
- Community arts
- Popular theatre
- Theatre-in-education
- Theatre and homelessness
- Applied theatre and health
- Creative aging
- Theatre and migration
- Theatre and heritage
- Queer and trans arts
- Applied theatre and criminal justice
- Arts policy
Further study
After studying your Master's in Applied Theatre, you could go on to further study with our postgraduate research courses:

This MA Applied Theatre is sector-leading; offering access to industry pathways and professional practitioners held in the utmost respect and providing its students with invaluable placements and contacts. This is an exciting time for applied theatre and it feels timely for UEL to pioneer the way in using theatre for social justice, politics and performance."Rob Lehmann
Director of Young Lyric, Lyric Hammersmith.
How you'll learn
The programme combines taught learning, practical projects and professional placements to help you develop your specialist interests and career goals.
You will gain hands-on experience through placements with arts organisations and practitioners working in community, educational and cultural settings.
Throughout the course, you will design and deliver participatory arts projects while developing practical facilitation skills and creative approaches to engagement.
You will also build professional skills in leadership, project design, fundraising and funding applications, preparing you to lead collaborative projects in a range of social and cultural contexts.
Guided independent study
When not attending timetabled lectures, MA Applied Theatre postgraduates will be expected to continue learning independently through self-study. This will typically involve reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects, undertaking coursework assignments and presentations, and preparing for exams. Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities including online resources, the library and Moodle.
Academic support
Our academic support team provides help in a range of areas - including learning and disability support.
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.
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
The MA Applied Theatre usually takes 10-15 students a year. This ensures full participation in classrooms and access to resources and mentoring that are tailored to your learning journey. In Term 2 and Term 3, there are opportunities for collaborative and interdisciplinary projects with your peers across the postgraduate space
How you'll be assessed
Assessment methods on the MA Applied Theatre degree reflect an ethos of learning that nurtures original theatre-based practices and rigorous understandings of how cultural politics is encountered and practised in collective situations.
An array of assessment types evaluates and prompts your development while offering opportunities to try out and test ideas through practice, creative documentation, critical interrogation/ reflection, and project delivery. Your final independent project can be undertaken as a practical project or as a written dissertation.
Feedback is offered within 15 working days after submission of your assessment.
Campus and facilities
University Square Stratford, London, E15 1NF
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 Stratford developments such as Westfield Stratford City and the Theatre Royal. You can be in Canary Wharf in 20 minutes, the English National Ballet in 15 minutes and Sadler's Wells East in 8 minutes.
Who teaches this course
This course is delivered by 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.
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 was attracted to the MA Theatre Directing course because not only does it concentrate on text-based theatre but also various methodologies and different ways to create a performance.
The Black Box studio is a professional theatre production space at University Square Stratford. I love our performances there at the end of every term."
Orsolya Nagy
MA Theatre Directing student
















