Stage Design & Scenography BA (Hons) (with Foundation Year)
UCAS Code: Combined honours only - see Combinations tab|Duration: 4 years|Full Time|Creative Campus
UCAS Campus Code: L46
Work placement opportunities|International students can apply
About the course
On this course you will be trained to design and make immersive worlds for different audiences. It’s about exploring drama and performance through the interactions between bodies, environments and creative technologies. How can light function as an actor? How can a set be built by sound alone? How can we subtly direct our audiences without them knowing? What are the ethical challenges of creating a performance solely for one person? As worldbuilders, you will learn about the different approaches to designing and creating your own immersive performance environments, supported by technical training that will prepare you for the creative sector.
Your three years begins with an introduction to immersive performance practices and scenographic design before you journey into the exciting challenges of audience participation and interaction. Moving outside of the campus, the city of Liverpool itself will become a site for performance, echoing the work of immersive practitioners such as Punchdrunk, dreamthinkspeak and Shunt. Your final year will involve a push into new and experimental performance technologies, presenting performance projects in virtual worlds and the development of escape rooms and other ludic practices. This will culminate in you selecting either to complete a placement within an arts organisation or to take the lead as project manager of a major performance project of your own devising. This final year will also require you to complete an independent research project on a topic of your own choice.
This course is for those who are passionate about theatre and performance but are more interested in working behind the scenes.
Course structure
The course will be delivered by way of an integrated lecture series, supported by seminars, practical workshops and student-led tutorials.
Assessment and feedback
Assessment will be by way of digital creative projects; programming and coding design tests and contextual essays.
Foundation Year
The Foundation Year is a great opportunity if you have the ability and enthusiasm to study for a degree, but do not yet have the qualifications required to enter directly onto our degree programmes. A significant part of the Foundation Year focuses upon core skills such as academic writing at HE level, becoming an independent learner, structuring academic work, critical thinking, time management and note taking.
Successful completion of the Foundation Year will enable you to progress into the first year (Level C) of your chosen honours degree. Further details can be found here.
Year One
The focus for the first year of study is on mapping the field of Stage Design & Scenography. The critical area of focus is that of 'immersion', with you being introduced to the works of varying practitioners and artists whose work has sought to facilitate this for their audiences. This year will culminate in you designing a performance that emphasises a particular sense for an audience. For example, with so many performances favouring what an audience sees and hears, what could be learned by adapting a play to be experienced by touch or taste?
Year Two
The focus for the first year of study is on mapping the field of Stage Design & Scenography. The critical area of focus is that of 'immersion', with you being introduced to the works of varying practitioners and artists whose work has sought to facilitate this for their audiences. This year will culminate in you designing a performance that emphasises a particular sense for an audience. For example, with so many performances favouring what an audience sees and hears, what could be learned by adapting a play to be experienced by touch or taste?
Year Three
In your final year of study, emphasis is placed on your signature practice. At the end of the year, you will present practical work that demonstrates the combination of this course with your other 60 credit course. This could take the form of a live performance / installation or a placement in a relevant arts organisation. Additionally, we will also look at the role of play and gamification in immersive practices, casting our audience as players in the different games we will design for them. These will range from escape rooms to performances in virtual worlds. Running alongside your practical work, you will develop an extended research project on a topic of your own choice that further supports your signature practice.
Entry requirements
There may be some flexibility for mature students offering non-tariff qualifications and students meeting particular widening participation criteria.
Careers
Stage Design & Scenography is a fast-growing area of employment regionally, nationally and globally from games, installations, through to large-scale performance events, concerts and shows. Career prospects are diverse and significant and, consequently, graduates of Interactive and Immersive Performance will work across a range of important career pathways.
The variety of course combinations for this course affords a greater potential for different career trajectories. Within the creative industries, students will be well-placed to seek employment as performers, freelance creative technologists, directors, production designers, arts administrators and immersive experience designers.
The course’s emphasis on performance-making will provide versatility for students seeking to work behind the scenes of production as well as performing in works.
Many of our students will pursue a qualification in teacher training or in a postgraduate course within the creative and performing arts.
Enhancement opportunities
Work Placement Opportunities
Work placement opportunities will be sought from the many Liverpool-based cultural organisations that Liverpool Hope University already has good working relationships with: Everyman & Playhouse, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool Sound City, etc.
SALA
The Service and Leadership Award (SALA) is offered as an extra-curricular programme involving service-based experiences, development of leadership potential and equipping you for a career in a rapidly changing world. It enhances your degree, it is something which is complimentary but different and which has a distinct ‘value-added’ component. Find out more on our Service and Leadership Award page.
Study Abroad
As part of your degree, you can choose to spend either a semester or a full year of study at one of our partner universities as part of our Study Abroad programme. Find out more on our Study Abroad page.
Tuition fees
The tuition fees for the 2024/25 academic year are £9,250 for full-time undergraduate courses.
If you are a student from the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, your tuition fees will also be £9,250.
The University reserves the right to increase Home and EU Undergraduate and PGCE tuition fees in line with any inflationary or other increase authorised by the Secretary of State for future years of study.
Additional costs
While all of the required equipment will be supplied by Liverpool Hope University – a good quality laptop would be a worthwhile resource to be owned by the student.
Scholarships
We have a range of scholarships to help with the cost of your studies. Visit our scholarships page to find out more.
International tuition fees
The International Tuition fees for 2024/25 are £12,500.
Visit our International fees page for more information.
Course combinations
This course is also available with Foundation Year as a Combined Honours degree with the following subjects: