BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (Music)

Acting Through Song

Through analysis and performance, this module allows you to discover and establish skills in creating a journey through song. Delivered via a combination of one-to-one lessons, lectures and masterclasses, you will explore text, music, acting, vocal choices and the emotional and physical journey of character. The module also includes repertoire classes, audition technique, vocal health and physiology and audio/visual recording.

Masterclass

This module develops your basic performance and communication skills and your sense of performance context. You will develop your repertoire, your understanding of style and your skill in preparing for audition or performance.

Musical Grammar

This module builds on the knowledge you have accrued on music grammar and deepens your understanding of key elements of musical structure.

You will continue to present and discuss your work, both individually and in groups – enhancing skills in teamwork and presentation and building confidence.

Musical Theatre History and Context

This module includes a thorough investigation of the key elements of musical theatre – song and lyrics, book and libretto, choreography, staging and the physical production and aims to develop the skills of reading, writing, critical thinking, research and oral communication that are fundamental to collaboration.

Professional Resilience

This module will explore a range of different strategies designed to offer support to the emerging arts practitioner and will introduce you to a number of different models of successful self-development.

Style and Genre

Lectures, analytical listening and set reading materials will take you on a chronological survey of the Western Art-Music tradition from its beginnings in ancient Greece, through the birth of polyphony, early opera, the works of Mozart and Beethoven, to the Tristan Prelude and the roots of modernism.

Throughout this process, you will examine the development of genres, musical structures, and compositional style.

Theatre Craft

This module allows you to establish and refine skills in the essential musical theatre dance disciplines of ballet, jazz and tap and to explore distinct approaches to acting.

There is a strong emphasis on consolidating and enhancing technique, improving posture and proprioceptive awareness, and developing musicality and artistic qualities within movement. You will consider the importance of craft and technique but also the critical thinking at the heart of the creative process.

The acting methods include Stanislavski, Brecht, Meisner, comedy and physical theatre.

Acting Through Song 2

This module allows you to strengthen your craft of creating a journey through song through both analysis and performance.

You will assess the repertoire studied over the previous year and begin to explore more varied and challenging work under the direction of your individual vocal teacher and group tutors.

Through masterclasses and lectures, you will develop your understanding of text, music, acting and vocal choices and the emotional and physical journey of character.

Masterclass

This module continues to develop your performance and communication skills and your sense of performance context. You will develop your repertoire, your understanding of style and your skill in preparing for audition or performance.

Musicals On Screen

This module explores the diverse cultural, social and historical contexts in which the movie musical has developed and currently operates. In addition, you will focus on the exploration of different filmmaking techniques, technologies and creative methodologies, using real world movie musicals as examples.

Opera and Operetta

Available in two different delivery modes, this module can be followed as either a conventional weekly series of lectures during semester two, or as a week-long intensive culminating in a staged performance outside the semester period.

Learning is focused on examples drawn from 19th century opera forms, seeking to develop a lively sense of the evolving performance context, which came to be described as operetta.

Performance Anxiety

Examine the problem of performance anxiety and stage nerves and study the theoretical background and how to effectively deal with anxiety.

You will look at the performance itself and the surrounding physiological and psychological factors that lead to stage nerves during performance.

This module introduces a wide range of theories from relevant disciplines including cognitive behavioural therapy and neuro-linguistic programming.

Professional Resilience

This module will explore a range of different strategies designed to offer support to the emerging arts practitioner and will introduce you to a number of different models of successful self-development.

Self-Employment, Employment and Visualising Success

This module explores the local and national marketplace and will introduce you to a number of different models of successful positioning within it.

A successful career as a music professional needs to be informed, alongside musical and communication skills, by an understanding of the nature of self-employment in business.

This module will seek to develop this, and to encourage a confident approach to the world beyond university, enabling a tailored financial and business planning which encourages an awareness of local markets and circumstances.

The Musical Theatre Business

You will explore examples of different types of musical theatre performance and the function of a range of professional roles in commercial and publicly funded contexts.

Theatre Craft 2A & B

This module further develops your skills in the Musical Theatre dance disciplines of ballet, jazz and tap. Barre work and centre practice increase in complexity.

Jazz classes will follow the format of conditioning, stretching, and strengthening of the body and the vocabulary of steps in tap will build as you progress, as will the challenge in content and rhythm.

In addition, you will further explore approaches to acting, widening your application of craft and technique, and deepening your critical thinking.

Acting Through Song 3

This module allows you to refine your craft of creating a journey through song through more comprehensive analysis and proficient performance.

You will assess the repertoire studied over the previous years and begin to explore advanced work under the direction of your individual vocal teacher and group tutors.

Through masterclasses and lectures you will further develop your understanding of text, music, acting and vocal choices and the emotional and physical journey of character.

Business Project

This module is taken by Arts Management students and aims to develop competency in business planning and imaginative use of physical and creative resources.

Communicating Music Through Movement & Gesture

This module explores the opportunities that exist for enhanced communication within the formal performance context, using your own physical projection of self and personal narrative of intention.

Work will also be developed in a broader context, allowing a deeper understanding of the semiotics of movement – the kinesic variables which impact upon the viewer – and the generic codes that attach to the music you play.

Create Your Own Show (Personal Study)

This module allows you to select an area or areas of study of their choice, in singing, instrumental study, dance (including choreography), acting, comedy, magic, and to develop this over an extended period into a self-devised show.

This provides an opportunity to develop an individual repertoire, and to present a longer and more challenging programme of work centred around your individual skill set.

Introduction to Fundraising in the Arts

The module will consider the third-sector in relation to the other two sectors, the legal structures for non-profit organisations and regional variations in regulation, alongside the charity model in at least one other country.

Masterclass

This module develops your advanced performance and communication skills and your sense of performance context. You will develop your repertoire, your understanding of style and your skill in preparing for audition or performance.

Opera

This module takes a chronological approach to the study of the genre, beginning with the early Baroque and offering examples of differing musical styles up until the first half of the 20th century, with a particular focus on the late 18th to mid 19th centuries.

The relationship between narrative and the musical expression of dramatic tension will be explored.

Your lectures will make connections between the function of musical structure and form within individual works and the development of character and plot.

Personal Study (Recital)

This module sees you select an area of study in performance and develop it over an extended period.

For performers, this is an opportunity to present a longer and more challenging programme of work.

Personal Study (Written)

This module provides you with an opportunity to select an area of study of your choice, to research it and present your findings in written form, and to develop this over an extended period.

Professional Resilience

This module will explore a range of different strategies designed to offer support to the emerging arts practitioner and will introduce you to several different models of successful self-development.

Song Writing

This module brings together the practical and theoretical skills a composer needs for completing and presenting compositions. It gives you a forum to demonstrate the musical and lyric writing skills and techniques developed during the course and leads to projects preparing for effective public performance.

The MT Swing

This module gives you an insight to the role of a ‘swing’ within a musical theatre performance context. This is where you will be asked to learn all the parts of a particular production to be ready to fill any role.

You will develop an exploration of performance styles in practical work and a willingness to approach new and more complex learning strategies.

A more professional approach to rehearsal will be encouraged and you will keep a ‘swing bible’ (written log) of all information needed to effectively take part in the performance, in any given role.

Theatre Craft 3A & B

This module develops your skills in the musical theatre dance disciplines to create proficient performances.

You will investigate classical ballet performance and its important links to other dance styles. You will be able to use your musical experience to select music for appropriate routines – waltz, tango, hornpipe etc., apply different varieties of music to jazz formats – lyrical, contemporary, street etc, and develop your musical understanding within the tap genre of how to create different beats and rhythms within phrases.

You will further develop your approaches to acting with more advanced textual, physical, and dramaturgical analysis. Through study of Hagen and Practical Aesthetics you will deepen your critical thinking.