MA Playwriting 12 months Postgraduate Program By The University of Manchester |Top Universities
Subject Ranking

# 51-100QS Subject Rankings

Program Duration

12 monthsProgram duration

Main Subject Area

Performing ArtsMain Subject Area

Program overview

Main Subject

Performing Arts

Degree

MA

Study Level

Masters

The MA Playwriting course is an intensive one-year programme designed to provide a genuine gateway into a writing career in the theatre and performance industries. It is taught by practitioners and is vocationally-oriented and industry-focused. Students will work with leading industry practitioners to develop their playwriting, pitching and dramaturgical skills. Students will learn about and develop skills in writing for performance across a diverse range of contexts, genres and themes. By the end of the course, students will have developed at least one full-length stage play, a collection of one-act dramas, a full-length festival play and at least one play that adapts elements of a classic text to engage with a contemporary context. In Semester 1, students will study the basics of playwriting as a craft, focusing on form and structure. This will include engaging with plays in textual form and in live performance, and the study of plot/story, character, genre, scene development, monologue and dialogue, dramatic action, beginnings, endings, features of staging and audience relationship. Students will study a diverse range of new and historical works, including historical plays that have brought about innovations in dramatic form and structure, as well as new writing staged in Britain and further afield in recent years. In the second semester, the study will turn to industry-oriented study, focusing on developing new pieces for festival contexts, and on the skills and resiliencies needed to sustain a living in playwriting. There will be an industry day based at our studio theatre on campus, with talks from directors, agents, producers, publishers, literary officers and writers.

Program overview

Main Subject

Performing Arts

Degree

MA

Study Level

Masters

The MA Playwriting course is an intensive one-year programme designed to provide a genuine gateway into a writing career in the theatre and performance industries. It is taught by practitioners and is vocationally-oriented and industry-focused. Students will work with leading industry practitioners to develop their playwriting, pitching and dramaturgical skills. Students will learn about and develop skills in writing for performance across a diverse range of contexts, genres and themes. By the end of the course, students will have developed at least one full-length stage play, a collection of one-act dramas, a full-length festival play and at least one play that adapts elements of a classic text to engage with a contemporary context. In Semester 1, students will study the basics of playwriting as a craft, focusing on form and structure. This will include engaging with plays in textual form and in live performance, and the study of plot/story, character, genre, scene development, monologue and dialogue, dramatic action, beginnings, endings, features of staging and audience relationship. Students will study a diverse range of new and historical works, including historical plays that have brought about innovations in dramatic form and structure, as well as new writing staged in Britain and further afield in recent years. In the second semester, the study will turn to industry-oriented study, focusing on developing new pieces for festival contexts, and on the skills and resiliencies needed to sustain a living in playwriting. There will be an industry day based at our studio theatre on campus, with talks from directors, agents, producers, publishers, literary officers and writers.

Admission requirements

3+
100+
7+
Jan-2000

Tuition fee and scholarships

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Part of the prestigious Russell Group of universities, The University of Manchester enjoys an international reputation for pioneering research and innovation.

According to the 2025 QS Ranking of World Universities, Manchester is ranked 34th in the world and 6th in the UK. Now the largest single-site university in the UK, based in the heart of one of the most exciting cities in the world, Manchester is also a truly international institution - with over 160 nationalities represented.  Manchester is a truly comprehensive university and boasts strength in all areas of Humanities, Science, Engineering, Biology, Medicine and Health.

Consistently among the most targeted university by the UK’s top employers (High Fliers Report) and enjoying a top 50 reputation among employers globally (QS).

The University of Manchester is one of Britain's most famous and forward-thinking universities, with a rich heritage stretching back to 1824 and an exciting agenda for the future.  Our story is one of world firsts and brilliant discoveries, with 25 Nobel Prize winners having worked or studied here. Many major advances of the 20th century began here, including the birth of the computer, the work that led to the splitting of the atom and the founding principles of modern economics. Today, research remains at the heart of the University and the quality, breadth and volume of research activity is unparalleled in the UK, with strong collaborative links with industry across the globe.

The University’s campus has benefitted from a £1 billion capital investment programme features beautiful heritage buildings and new developments such as a new building for Alliance Manchester Building School and MECD, the single largest home for engineering in any UK university. The campus also features a museum, art gallery, concert venues and the biggest Students’ Union in the UK with over 400 clubs and societies. 

Follow the University of Manchester on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat and X.

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