TH205-5-SP-CO:
Acting and Directing Classical Texts
2025/26
Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
Colchester Campus
Spring
Undergraduate: Level 5
Current
Monday 12 January 2026
Friday 20 March 2026
15
04 April 2025
Requisites for this module
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)
BA W401 Drama,
BA W402 Drama (Including Year Abroad),
BA W403 Drama (Including Placement Year),
BA W408 Drama (Including Foundation Year),
BA QW24 Drama and Literature,
BA QW25 Drama and Literature (Including Placement Year),
BA WQ28 Drama and Literature (Including Foundation Year),
BA WQ42 Drama and Literature (Including Year Abroad)
This module introduces students to acting and directing plays written pre-1800.
We will focus on an intensive exploration of three plays: a Shakespeare play, a Jacobean or Restoration play and an 18th century comedy.
Students on the module will take a series of practical performance workshops, culminating in an assessed performance from one of the three plays studied.
A weekly two-hour workshop will focus on the practical exploration of each play, with three additional academic lectures to introduce and contextualize each play.
The aims of the module are:
- For students to have a deep knowledge and understanding of classical plays.
- To achieve a confident relationship with the language, the dramatic conventions and generic characteristics of play.
- To learn and put into practice a variety of acting approaches to classical text; to be able to compare and analyse different directorial approaches.
- To analyse and compare film and theatre productions, and to take both a creative and critical approach to the performance of classical text.
By the end of the module students will be expected to be able to:
- Demonstrate a deep and critical understanding of contrasting classical plays all written pre-1800, along with broad knowledge of relevant historical and theoretical contexts.
- Display the skills to approach with classical plays from different periods as actors and directors, and the critical knowledge to choose an appropriate style/approach.
- Demonstrate a critical creative approach to the performance and direction of a short scene.
This module takes a deep dive into a single Shakespeare play in order to facilitate students' engagement with the text, its contexts, and its contemporary resonances. While our focus on one play is deep and narrow, the theoretical and practical range of the module is broad, asking students to grapple with a range of approaches and techniques, from so-called "original practices" to radical adaptations. Along the way, students are asked to negotiate their own creative voicesin relation to Shakespeare's, addressing the 400-year-old text with twenty-first-century eyes, to investigate what it means to perform Shakespeare today.
This module will be delivered via:
- Ten weekly 2-hour workshops
- Five lectures
This module does not appear to have a published bibliography for this year.
Assessment items, weightings and deadlines
| Coursework / exam |
Description |
Deadline |
Coursework weighting |
Exam format definitions
- Remote, open book: Your exam will take place remotely via an online learning platform. You may refer to any physical or electronic materials during the exam.
- In-person, open book: Your exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer to any physical materials such as paper study notes or a textbook during the exam. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, open book (restricted): The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer only to specific physical materials such as a named textbook during the exam. Permitted materials will be specified by your department. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, closed book: The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may not refer to any physical materials or electronic devices during the exam. There may be times when a paper dictionary,
for example, may be permitted in an otherwise closed book exam. Any exceptions will be specified by your department.
Your department will provide further guidance before your exams.
Overall assessment
Reassessment
Module supervisor and teaching staff
Dr Nora Williams, email: n.williams@essex.ac.uk.
Dr Nora Williams
LiFTS General Office, email liftstt@essex.ac.uk
Yes
Yes
Yes
Dr Christina Papagiannouli
University of South Wales
Research Fellow
Available via Moodle
No lecture recording information available for this module.
* Please note: due to differing publication schedules, items marked with an asterisk (*) base their information upon the previous academic year.
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