The Performance MA/MFA at Rose Bruford College is a new, interdisciplinary and collaborative postgraduate programme designed to prepare artists for the evolving landscape of the creative industries. It supports students to amplify diverse voices, engage critically with contemporary culture, and shape new performance futures.
At the heart of the programme is a commitment to dialogue across different modes of making, thinking and producing. Students are encouraged to work across disciplines, opening up innovative spaces for collaboration and experimentation, and generating exciting new performance possibilities.
Queer Performance Showcase 2024 at Arts Admin.
The course offers five optional Specialist Pathways, allowing students to develop focused expertise while remaining embedded in a wider interdisciplinary cohort:
- Actor-Musicianship
- Curating
- Devising
- Queer Performance
- and Theatre for Children and Young People
Students may choose not to pursue a Specialist Pathway and instead follow the general route through the programme, which includes the shared modules and two pathways.
This programme sits at the centre of the College’s long-standing commitment to queer performance, political theatre and socially engaged practice as key research strategies.
“We’re excited that MA Queer Performance is evolving into the Performance MA, with the option to pursue a Specialist Pathway in Queer Performance. This remains the same world-leading, unapologetically queer programme, now situated within a bold interdisciplinary structure that expands what we can offer and how we can connect.
Rose Bruford College’s commitment to queer performance is deepening. Students undertaking Queer Performance as a Specialist Pathway will work with lecturers and artists at the forefront of the field, with access to expanded facilities, cross-disciplinary expertise, and new possibilities generated by learning in a space where different practices collide.”
As the Theatre for Young Audiences Centre continues to grow, supported by newly announced funding and partnerships with key local and national organisations, the programme also introduces a Theatre for Children and Young People Specialist Pathway.
Hamlet at Riverside School, 2025.
This pathway builds on the College’s pioneering reputation in theatre for young audiences, led by Jeremy Harrison, offering students the opportunity to engage critically and creatively with performance made with, for and by children and young people. Students will work alongside practitioners, researchers and partner organisations to explore contemporary approaches to making work for diverse audiences, from early years to young adults, across live, digital and hybrid forms.
Jeremy Harrison also leads the Actor-Musicianship Specialist Pathway, building on the College’s legacy as a pioneer in this field. The pathway explores the integration of live music-making and musicality within theatre and performance. Students develop hybrid skills as performers, composers, arrangers and makers, using music as a core mode of expression and meaning-making.
“This programme offers a space for students to explore the breadth and interdisciplinarity that contemporary theatre practitioners need to sustain careers. The Actor-Musicianship Pathway will enable students to deepen their musical skills and apply them across diverse performance contexts, including music-theatre and multi-sensory work, whilst the Theatre for Children and Young People Pathway foregrounds co-created approaches to making work with, for and by young audiences.
Across the course, students will be encouraged to think expansively about audience, place and space, and to create work that celebrates the many ways we connect and engage.”
Jeremy Harrison
The programme also further embeds the College’s commitment to political performance and innovative practice through pathways in Curating, led by Dr Phoebe Patey-Ferguson, and Devising, led by Dr Joseph Dunne-Howrie, who also leads the MFA provision at the College.
“The Devising Pathway equips students with the skills and knowledge to create performance that responds to some of the most urgent social and political issues of our time. By exploring the history of radical performance alongside contemporary thinkers in fields such as political science, history and digital media, students will deepen their understanding of the role of performance as a vital intervention for imagining our future differently.
The MFA year provides an opportunity for deep engagement with the contemporary performing arts industry, with professional placements, archival research and experimental performance-making. Together, these experiences support students in shaping a distinctive artistic identity rooted in politically and socially engaged practice.”
Dr Joseph Dunne-Howrie
Queer Performance Showcase 2024 at Arts Admin.
Together, the five Specialist Pathways reflect Rose Bruford College’s commitment to innovation, collaboration and research-led teaching, creating a distinctive postgraduate offer for artists, thinkers and curators seeking to shape the future of performance.
“I’m very excited by the introduction of the Performance MA/MFA at Rose Bruford College. This programme makes a significant contribution to the sector, foregrounding our research strengths and reinforcing the College’s role as a hub for innovation, critically informed practice and cutting-edge performance research.”
Dr Joe Parslow, Head of Research and Postgraduate Provision.
We’re currently accepting applications for October 2026.
This programme is subject to validation and the programme content may change slightly.
Find out more about course fees, entry requirements, and the application process.
Join us at one of our upcoming campus open days or register for an international webinar.
Please get in touch with us at [email protected] for information on entry criteria if you’re applying from outside the UK.