Drama: Theatre, Film, Television (PhD) – (Ph.D.)

Bristol Drama Department is acknowledged as one of the leading departments in the country. The Department is a vibrant creative community of scholars, practitioner-researchers, and production staff working across and between performance and screen. Both research and teaching include performance / theatre-based and screen / media-based work, separately and in their overlaps and interactions, and by study through practice as well as more traditional forms of scholarship. Students are normally accepted for the MLitt first, with an expectation of upgrading to PhD. The MPhil offers the opportunity of a one-year Research Masters, which may also be upgraded. Assessment may be by written dissertation or by a combination of writing and practice. The Department is actively committed to mixed modes of research and has taken a lead in developing creative research at a doctoral level both in performance and screen. Doctoral candidates are offered negotiated access to theatre and video production facilities. We also have strong links with the creative and cultural industries and currently have four students working on collaborative PhDs with Arnolfini in Bristol.

The Department houses the internationally renowned University of Bristol Theatre Collection, a leading collection of theatre and performance archives, including the London Old Vic Archive, the Live Art Archives, the Women's Theatre Collection, the Welfare State International Archive, and archives of numerous designers, directors and actors. We are currently expanding our cohort of PhD students and welcome enquiries from candidates with an interest in undertaking original research based in any of the Theatre Collection holdings.