POSTGRADUATE

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from Commedia to Clown

MA PHYSICAL THEATRE-MAKING

Course Overview

Imagine a year long R&D process that delivers you to the industry as a fully-formed theatre company with a complete production that's ready to play. This is where all your learning and experience has led you. This postgraduate course, accredited by Falmouth University, unlocks the global history of theatre and gives you the tools and processes necessary to produce compelling and change-making shows.

Develop the capacity to initiate, create and produce ground-breaking and innovative new works from conception to delivery.

Become an industry-ready, interdisciplinary collaborator who is knowledgeable, trailblazing and entrepreneurial.

Form a new theatre company, fortified by the mentorship of the course and introduced to international collaborations for sustainable and robust onward opportunities.

How To Apply

Collaborative Artists of the Future

The course is designed by professional directors, producers, practitioners and scholars with a wealth of industry experience and a passion for original work. The course continues to be driven, taught and shaped by their first-hand, diverse contact with the current professional landscape and their up-to-date understanding of the most relevant disciplines necessary for a sustainable professional career as the industry becomes increasingly cross-media, multi-disciplinary and international.

You'll develop skills to contextualise, re-frame and challenge your artistic practice in theatre and related fields, further expanding you portfolio of work. You’ll take part in practical workshops and seminars exploring technique and text to enhance professional practice. Within a small ensemble training environment, you’ll receive holistic training in the processes and practices necessary to establish thriving theatre companies. This includes creating professional pitches, funding applications and marketing plans as well as tour management.

Presented as a supported and intensive year-long Research and Development process, the MA Physical Theatre-Making course is a launchpad for the next generation of artists, makers and creatives. The culmination of training on the course is a full collaborative production and tour of devised, original work in professional performance settings throughout the UK, becoming a fully functioning company in the process.

Studying on Fourth Monkey’s MA Physical Theatre-Making, awarded by Falmouth University, will provide you with an opportunity to develop the necessary practical and creative skills of the 21st century collaborator and theatre maker to professional level. Founded upon a truly decolonised

and inclusive curriculum of international practice, global perspectives, culturally diverse approaches, theatrical legacy, historical contexts and inclusive practice, this course also embraces prospective practice and interdisciplinary collaboration. It will afford you the opportunity to practically cultivate your artistic, creative, innovative and collaborative skill, in order for you to apply these skills to your own original projects, as you create and realise your own artistic and creative process as a generative artist with artistic aptitude, practical dexterity, theoretical and creative confidence, and business acumen.

The field of 21st century performance making requires the capacity to be versatile across and synthesise around varying and emerging media. It requires the ability to create performance texts through multiple processes, innovate through interdisciplinary collaborations and reconceive former theatrical traditions, forms and approaches. With this in mind, there is an unquestionable requirement to be able to collaboratively and creatively negotiate at a high level, accumulate a rich, diverse and broad understanding of performance practice, understand national and international approaches, bridge gaps between disciplines and art forms, acknowledge historical and emergent practice, and challenge the notion of ‘conventional’ theatre space in order to increasingly diversify audiences and patrons.

Entrepreneurship and the ability to independently identify, design and create work opportunities in a rapidly changing and largely freelance work environment, are vital skills for building and sustaining a professional career as a collaborator and theatre maker. The training on this course

is intended to encourage you to develop and foster your own curiosity, creativity and confidence in becoming an imaginative, collaborative and innovative artist, and a skilled, knowledgeable and autonomous professional. It will also provide you with multiple opportunities to apply and test

your skills with rigour and precision, in a practice rich, industry-focused programme of study, with the guidance of experienced directors, practitioners, theatre companies, creatives and scholars.

Investigate and shape who you are as an artist, what you want to say and how you could theatrically say it across a range of creative production contexts, creative and innovative collaborative tasks and artistic styles, and performance practice
Explore and develop a range of diverse and international creative practices, in order to evolve your own collaborative theatre making process, and the necessary and integral skills required to do this to a professional standard
Hone your creative and professional critical skills, in order to initiate, shape and position your own work with direction, rigour, precision and clarity
Formulate and engage in research practice activities, which explore and distil ideas and concepts through research and development processes leading to the generation of performance
Expand your ability to imaginatively discover and respond to an array of practice, research, diverse sources and varied stimuli, and interrogate these as ideational material, in order to initiate creative activity
Inform and appraise your personal perceptions of (your)self, theatre / performance and the world around you, as an intrinsic element of performance generation
Experiment, innovate and alchemise in performance making across different contexts and / or integrate varied / cross media and interdisciplinary practice
Navigate varied professional performance contexts and production paradigms, and understand and integrate the artistic, business and practical factors which emerge within this context
Understand how to shape creative projects which recognise, challenge and transcend existing contexts, models and paradigms
Develop the skills of objective reflection and evaluation which allow artistic projects and your own personal skillset to evolve

Understand the necessity for inclusive, artistic and creative collaboration both in training / development and professionally
Study, work and train in an inclusive and diverse ensemble environment
Accommodate the unique and diverse contributions of individuals within the ensemble
Develop the skills of negotiation and communication, which allow for shared artistic projects to evolve and for conflict and challenge to be managed professionally
Recognise and operate in various roles within a creative production process, and adapt and develop these skills accordingly
Understand the capacity of performance and performance creation to contribute to inclusive and representative cultural debate
Understand the ethical implications and appropriateness of performance work to ensure activities are undertaken in a safe, supported and inclusive environment
Effectively lead, facilitate, participate and problem solve within the collaborative and inclusive context of performance generation
Understand ensemble dynamics in order to operate collaboratively within collective, creative and professional contexts to generate and pursue shared artistic and creative goal(s) / vision
Recognise situational and interpersonal factors and how these can be effectively and professionally managed, in order to facilitate successful and progressive ensemble relationships, personal development, collective growth, and artistic brilliance
Consider, acknowledge and respect diverse opinions and the social, cultural and ideological positions from which they arise
Recognise shared values, approaches, and strategic goals, of potential partners and stakeholders in building relationships, which support the creation of performance

Many of the skills required for this course and for professional collaborative practice and theatre making are readily transferable to numerous and diverse professional environments.

As you progress through the course, you will also develop the ability to:

Take Initiative, Accountability & Personal Responsibility
Identify potential creative opportunities and use appropriate strategies to initiate and engage with these
Recognise the responsibilities inherent within operating as a professional business / within a project, and demonstrate transparency, accountability, and efficacy, in personal practice, and project delivery
Understand how to manage risk, health and safety; employ ethical working practices to ensure safe and inclusive working contexts on an individual, collective and professional basis
Problem Solving & Decision Making:
Work in planned, improvisatory and innovative ways to anticipate and accommodate change, unpredictability, ambiguity, creative risk taking, uncertainty and unfamiliarity
Operate practically and collaboratively to solve problems, plan for, and anticipate challenges and issues
Strategise and implement coherent solutions independently, and in complex and pressurised contexts
Utilise research, texts, information, materials, practices and experiences to formulate independent ideas, and substantiate informed decision making, in the process of exploring ideas in systematic practice
Formulate articulate and informed responses to the constructive feedback of others
Work through interdisciplinary approaches and understand different technical, creative, artistic, theatrical, social and cultural perspectives, axioms or paradigms of knowledge, and how they may influence creative decision making

Lifelong Independent Learning & Continuing Professional Development:

Identify personal strengths and successes, and effectively manage and take ownership of personal challenges, objectives and needs
Recognise and undertake additional training for professional development and invest in sustaining the currency of a professional creative skillset
Reflect on and evaluate personal career and project development, and identify potential priorities and strategies for continuous evolution
Recognise and cultivate appreciation of different cultures, forms of expression, diverse approaches, lived experiences, and the nuances of diversity within diversity

Communicate & Present Professionally:

Articulate ideas, listen to the contributions of others and communicate effectively in a range of professional contexts, accommodating the priorities of a range of audiences
Produce written materials, documentation and reports, which are in line with industry expectations and professional requirements
Professionally create and present innovative cross media content for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
Demonstrate literacy in digital vocabularies
Critically use information retrieval skills, involving the ability to gather, sift, adapt, manipulate, synthesise, evaluate and organise relevant material
Appropriately select, employ, and adapt digital media, and information technologies, to communicate strategically

Course Delivery

We take a maximum of 12 students to ensure a focused and personal approach to training. Contact with faculty, visiting practitioners and professional theatre companies is enlightening and rewarding with the potential to establish lasting professional relationships.

Practitioners and creatives who have previously worked with our MA Physical Theatre-Making students include:

Olivier Award Winning Choreographer & Movement Director, Steven Hoggett
Song of The Goat’s Alicja Bral
IROKO Theatre Company founder, Alex Oma-Pius
Japanese Noh Theatre practitioner, Sachi Kimura Lawson
Peter Brook Ensemble collaborator, Sean O’Callaghan
Alice Kornitzer from The Berliner Ensemble

The course runs from September to August and you’re expected to work independently, in the studios of The Monkey House, whilst exploring the processes and methodologies introduced to you.

Over the year, you’ll gather the professional skills required to take your work into the industry and uncover your own artistic practice within the wider historical, socio-political and international context. Seminars and workshops range from artistic development to production design and contemporary acting techniques, helping you develop a sustainable and responsible arts practice that promotes longevity.

Onward Destinations

A primary focus of our MA Physical Theatre-Making degree is your onward development and progression. We’re proud to celebrate the progression of our alumni artists and collaborators premiering their work, developed at Fourth Monkey, on the professional stage. Through our network of collaborators, our artists have been invited to share their work regionally and internationally whilst others have gone on to deliver their work at theatre festivals such as The Vaults.

How To Apply

FAQs

We recruit a maximum of 12 students to this course.

Like most London institutions, we don’t have our own dedicated halls of residence. Our students have access to a number of student housing halls of residence in our locality but a vast majority of our students will choose to live in shared student housing with others training on our courses. More information can be found on the Student Life section of our website, but we advise all students to coordinate their housing arrangements as early as possible upon acceptance to avoid disappointment or delay.

Yes, we are proud to be an inclusive and accessible school and constantly strive to identify and remove potential barriers to training.

Students eligible for additional support, in the form of a student disability allowance, should apply as early as possible once they have decided to accept their place to enable any available support to be in place for the commencement of their studies.

Those students unsure of their eligibility for a disabled student allowance should check with their GP, local health care professionals or education provider to ascertain if any additional support may be available via a DSA.

Our MA Collaborative Theatre graduates have forged their own successful careers as writers, directors, producers, and theatre-makers. The Fourth Monkey tribe works in stage, screen and audio productions, domestically and internationally, for companies such as Warner Bros, Dreamworks, Netflix, Sky Atlantic, HBO, RSC, National Theatre and The Globe.

Refer to our alumni page for the latest news and to see where our alumni are currently working.