Course Essentials
Welcome to Theatre & Performance at Canterbury Christ Church University and to the start of your professional journey. We have developed this course with employability in mind and we aim to help develop not only your practical skills but also your resilience, confidence and aspiration. Over the next three years you will have the opportunity to further your understanding of a number of areas within the industry, and in doing so expand your appreciation of sustainable career opportunities open to you. We are very much looking forward to meeting you for your induction week on Monday 14th September and working with you as you take the next steps in finding your place within the Theatre and Performance industry.
Dr Andy Hurst
Course Director for Theatre and Performance
Your Teaching Timetable
Teaching for your course will begin w.c 21 September 2026.
To help you plan your first few weeks, you can view an overview of the teaching activities for your course.
View your first semester teaching timetable.
On a mobile device, click the arrow next to “Search” at the top right of the page to view your timetable.
If your course is taught in groups, the overview will show activities for all groups. You will only need to attend sessions for your allocated group.
Once teaching begins, your individual timetable and group allocation will be available in MyTimetable provided you have completed online registration and created your computing account.
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Your Semester 1 Modules |
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The Dedicated Performer |
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Arts & Belonging |
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Success Modules - you will complete 3 of these 5 credit modules* |
*Success Modules
Your Journey to Success at CCCU is a compulsory success module. You'll then choose two more Success modules from a choice of eight.
These modules are completed online (asynchronous learning) and are not timetabled, so they won't appear in your teaching timetable.
Key dates
Academic Calendar: Semesters
View key dates for this Academic Calendar for 2026-27 including when teaching starts and finishes and when you break for holidays.
Welcome
Welcome to Theatre and Performance, we are looking forward to meeting you…
Our Theatre and Performance course will require you to be organised, engaged, committed and energetic! You’ll need to be able to work both as an independent individual as well as being able to embrace group work, committing to work as part of a team, as you produce new performances and tackle a variety of assignment tasks.
Our degree is taught face to face and of course, there is no substitute for being present in the room at all times. Developing performance skills and working as a theatre company is an iterative process that develops over time, so your connection and engagement with that process on a week-by-week basis is crucial. You can achieve great and wondrous things as part of a fully functioning creative team!
The staff and students on the course are part of a wider community of creative practitioners in the SPACES School that includes performers, composers, producers, game designers, photographers, and film makers, and we hope you’ll take advantage of the opportunities on offer to gain inspiration from this diverse group, to help expand and enhance your own creative practice.
Getting started
To prepare for September, try to immerse yourself in a variety of theatre activities. Many of you will be part of a community performance group which is fantastic, but if you are moving away from them see if you can find similar groups in and around Canterbury. There are a number of theatres locally, the main one being our industry collaborator, the Marlowe. Check out their website and start to identify shows you would like to see – they do a fantastic student rate on tickets. You will also find further live performance offerings at the Gulbenkian Arts Centre, the Malthouse and Jasmin Vardimon to name a few. Try to explore styles of live performance that you haven’t connected with previously. Remember this degree course is about examining different performance styles, genres and techniques – a creative, curious and enquiring mind is key.
For practical sessions where you are developing your performance skills and working as a theatre company we’d like you to wear loose comfortable clothing – black T shirt and joggers would be perfect.
During the semester we recommend that you check your university email every day as this is where your tutors will contact you. It is also where you will be sent news about exciting opportunities as well as information about events that are happening around the campus.
Your ‘Welcome and Induction’ will be w/c 14th September - we look forward to meeting you then.
Your Must Do Tasks
Once you have been invited to register for your course, there are some key tasks you'll need to complete to make sure you are ready to become a CCCU student.
Registration invitations are sent towards the end of August. We'll send yours to the email address you used when you applied, so please check this inbox regularly to make sure you don't miss any important information.
Pre-course reading
The text recommendations below are an excellent introduction to creating theatre and can be used for many of the modules, but please note that there is no requirement to purchase every book you need for your studies as the University library has a very good selection of course books which gets updated every year. And you are certainly not expected to have read them all by the time you arrive!
Fischer-Lichte, E. (2014) The Routledge Introduction to Theatre and Performance Studies. London: Routledge.
Mitchell, K. (2009) The Director’s Craft. London: Routledge.
Thomas, H. and Prickett, S. (eds.) (2019) The Routledge Companion to Dance Studies. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis.
Pallin, G. (2010) Stage Management: The Essential Handbook (3rd Edition). London: Nick Hern Books.
McKinney, J. and Palmer, S. (2017) Scenography Expanded: An Introduction to Contemporary Performance Design. Bloomsbury
International student success programme
International students: don't miss out! Make sure you register for our international student success programme which provides practical advice on preparing to live and study in the UK.
Contact details
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