About us

1927  

The University College of the South West of England (an antecedent organisation of the University of Exeter) offers the first Drama course at a British university. The course consists of three terms of evening sessions. An article published in Drama: The Journal of British Drama in this year describes the course as consisting of lectures on the art of dramatic production, the history of drama, the principles of dramatic criticism, and the history of the theatre and its craft. The article names Professor Lewis Horrox as the head of the new school, with Consuelo de Reyes, Peter King, Bertha Wright and Arnold Riley as lecturers.

1967  

The Northcott Theatre opens on the campus of the University of Exeter.

1968

John Rudlin is appointed assistant lecturer and sets up a joint honours degree in English & Drama in the Department of English at the University of Exeter, realising Professor Moelwyn Merchant’s dream of introducing creative arts into the department. Drama & French and Drama & German courses are also offered. Queen’s Building and the Sports Hall are used as teaching venues.

In 1969, John was joined by Les Read and Dorinda Hulton. Originally based in Queen's Building. The space that is now the Margaret Rooms was the practical space, with offices and workshops on the floor below. Use was also made of the secondary activities gym in the Sports Hall.
The spaces used as the practical workshop became a bike shed and art room for a while, and is now the home of Digital Humanities in Queens.

1969

Dorinda Hulton and Les Read join John Rudlin as Drama staff. From the outset, theory and practice are combined, as a guiding principle, and the assessment of practice is integrated into an undergraduate degree – a first in the UK. The drama studio is seen as an equivalent to the laboratory in the study of science. John Rudlin states: ‘At Exeter I wanted our students ... to experience theory and practice as being ends of the same stick. The medium, first dramatic then theatrical, was to be experienced [...] as instrumental to [students’] own personal development as performers and human beings. Participation in an ensemble was considered an essential part of this process in contrast with the rat-race to stardom model proffered by most drama schools’ (quoted in Hulton, 2014: 354). Students first work with ‘pre-theatre’ forms such as ritual and myth, then on dramatic texts. The acme of the course is constituted as a ‘Practical Essay’, the analysis of a laboratory experiment conducted by a researcher. Unless initiated by student request, there are no lectures, seminars, or tutorials. The course is delivered through a sequence of (generally five-week) projects involving, for teachers and students alike, up to six three-hour studio sessions per week in footless tights and sleeveless leotards or vests. There is no pre-set syllabus. Each student group builds up its distinct and unique syllabus project by project.

1971

1972

John Rudlin forms Medium Fair (a touring community theatre company) with Drama graduates.

1973

The first PhD students in Drama are enrolled at about this time.

1974

Peter Thomson is appointed Professor of Drama, following Professor Moelwyn Merchant's retirement. Thomson recalls: ‘I spent my first five weeks at Exeter as one of [John Rudlin’s] second-year group. It seemed the surest way of discovering how the project system worked. There were ten of us, researching pre-renaissance theatre in Exeter. I was terrified. There’s no hiding place in a small group and footless tights. When you work in pairs, you have to learn to be reliable and – which is much harder – to rely. It’s part of the essential generosity of performance. And who’s to say that thinking on your feet and educating your imagination are alien matters in a university environment?’ (Thomson, n.d.: 8).

1975

Nick Sales joins as Lecturer and becomes part of Medium Fair as well.

In his inaugural lecture, titled ‘The Action to the Word’, Peter Thomson remarks: ‘Our students may be more tolerant than we deserve; but there is an excitement about the course, a preparation and recognition of challenges, that binds each group together in the working situation however they may disperse when it is over. ... To their own and the course’s credit, I doubt whether they will be found wanting. To be dependable, we need to know how to depend’ (Thomson, 1975: 16).

Enrolled PhD students in Drama include Jim Davis, Philip Martin, and Viv Gardner.

1976

The Department of English becomes the School of English. Drama becomes a separate section within the School. Single Honours in Drama starts with a cohort of ten students.  Exeter Drama becomes a member of the Standing Committee of Drama Departments (SCUDD, later renamed Drama HE) in England.

1977

Drama moves to Thornlea Annexe (later redeveloped as the Alexander Building) at about this time, as space had become an issue with the additional intakes of Single Honours in Drama. Photos of Thornlea Annexe are available here.

1978

Glendyr Sacks joins as a Lecturer.

1981

The University Grants Committee, noting the decline in applications for Anglo-Saxon and Linguistics, invites thirteen universities, including Exeter, to discontinue the study of Drama, which was popular with school-leavers. The university recommends that Drama moves some aspects of the Single Honours syllabus back within the School of English – with the assurance that once the political pressures subside, the status quo would be restored. With vocal support from other departments, Drama conducts a successful fight against closure. The position of Drama is ultimately strengthened by the furore. However, ‘the thin end of the wedge that would destroy the challenge of the project system had been inserted’ (Thomson, n.d.: 9).

1982

Restructuring of courses throughout the university, which begins in this year, means that students from different courses can take options outside their chosen single honours.  

1985

Roborough comes to replace Washington Singer as the main practical space for teaching around this time. (The beautiful wooden floor in Washington Singer is sadly torn up and scrapped...) Photos of Roborough when it was used as a library are available on this page. Roborough’s transformation from library to Drama space takes place gradually as funds and time allow. An early production at the Roborough is Federico García Lorca’s play Blood Wedding, directed by Nick Sales.

1986

The government orders the first Research Assessment Exercise. It marks a shift of focus to the productivity of academic staff. Under the umbrella of accountability, a mathematically transparent credit system is imposed, bringing with it a measure of standardization across the university sector and making the project system of teaching and learning less tenable. Peter Thomson remarks: ‘I feel much as Bishop Richard Hurd felt in 1762, looking back to the Gothic wildness of Spenser’s Faery Queen from the new vantage-point of the post-Enlightenment world: ‘What we have gotten by this revolution is a great deal of good sense. What we have lost is a world of fine fabling’ (Thomson, n.d.: 9).

1987

Christopher McCullough joins the department, as does Dawn Canham, who arrives to work in the costume store. Les Read's production of To Damascus is the first production in the Department in which students make all the costumes. Over the years Dawn transforms the stock of costumes from one rail into the massive stock we have today (despite various coats circulating as day wear among the students of the time).

1988

1989

1990

The Journal of the Standing Committee of Drama Departments (SCUDD) is first published. The journal is later renamed Studies in Theatre Production and then Studies in Theatre and Performance.

1991

1993

1994

1995

1996

The Drama Department website launches. (An early web capture is available here).

1998

Drama becomes the larger partner in a new School of Drama and Music (SODAM). Christopher McCullough is elected Head of School. Drama has a teaching complement of fourteen people, including Steve Cockett, Dee Heddon, Stephen Hodge, Graham Ley, James MacDonald, Jane Milling, John Somers, Bill Stanton, Nikki Sved,  Lesley Wade, and Pam Woods. Lindsay Buchanan is Department secretary. The whole Thornlea site (including the White House) is now used by Drama exclusively. Three additional smaller studios – together with the Annexe – make Exeter’s Drama Department possibly the best-resourced of all the Drama Departments in the country.

1999

By this time, the department is running several postgraduate programmes, including an MA in Theatre Practice, an MA in Applied Theatre, and an MA/MFA in Staging Shakespeare. Photos of Applied Drama work in the department are available here. Photos of MA/MFA Staging Shakespeare students in performance over the years are available here and here.   

The PhD in Performance Practice programme is started. Pam Woods is the first student to do the degree. 

Chris Mearing joins the department’s technical team.

2000

Peter Hulton, engaged as a senior research fellow for several years, begins work on the Exeter Digital Archives, an international moving image resource for performance practice research, consisting of several archives brought together under one imprint.

2001

The first Pre-Sessional takes place. This event, established by Phillip Zarrilli (who had joined the department in 2000), gathers staff and postgraduate students at the start of the new academic year to share their research.

2002

The School of Drama and Music is renamed the School of Performance Arts. Nela Kapelan becomes the first School administrator.

2003

Roborough is closed between July and December for a major refit. Removable partition walls (that were on the original plans in 1984!) are finally fitted, enabling three groups to work in the space at the same time with more than a black curtain dividing them.

The control room and technical and storage spaces are also upgraded and expanded, along with new lighting bars. The asbestos ceiling in Roborough is also finally removed.

Playwright Kaite O’Reilly begins a three-year AHRC fellowship with the department on ‘alternative dramaturgies informed by a d/Deaf and disability perspective’.

An MA in Playwriting and Script Development, convened by Bill Stanton, is running at this time.

2004

From May 2004 to September 2005 Thornlea becomes a building site as a new £3 million extension goes up across the front of Thornlea Annexe. Photos of the construction are available on this page. Relatedly, in this decade, undergraduate student numbers more than double, greatly expanding the size of the department. Even with the expansion of student numbers, practice is retained at the heart of the student experience.

An MFA in Theatre Practice, convened by Phillip Zarrilli, launches. Photographs of postgraduate theatre practice over the years are available here.

2006

The new building at Thornlea opens. The Alexander Building is named after the former University Chancellor Lord Alexander.

Drama becomes part of the School of Arts, Languages and Literatures.

2007

The Alexander Building is officially opened in July by Lady Alexander, with the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor in attendance.

2008

The 40th Anniversary of the Drama Department at Exeter is marked buy a 36-hour durational performance called Marathon '08. This unique event was part athletic contest, part endurance feat, part rehearsed performance, part dance, part fund-raiser, and part party. 

Newer staff members working in the department in 2008 include Jessica Berson, Jerri Daboo, Birgit Haas, Martin Harvey, David Lane, Rebecca Loukes, Fiona Macbeth, Mick Mangan, David Roesner, Kerrie Schaefer, and William Stanton. Gayatri Simons is the department's administrator. Michelle Yeates is wardrobe technician. 

2009

The T3 Festival first takes place. It features over 40 individual performances, most of them initiated by students from across the department. A selection of photos of T3 events over the years is available on this page.

2010

The College of Humanities is formed, consisting of the School of Arts, Languages and Literatures and some of the departments from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

A joint honours degree in English and Drama is re-started at around this time, following a brief period in which only single honours Drama was offered.

Playwright Howard Barker, in collaboration with Sarah Goldingay and Mick Mangan, begins a three-year AHRC Creative Fellowship with the department. The project is entitled ‘Plethora and Bare Sufficiency: A New Practice for a Tragic Theatre’. Photos of Barker’s play Blok/Eko, performed at the Northcott in 2011 and involving Exeter Drama students, are available here.

2011

The Devising Discovery Outreach programme begins as an industry partnership within the Applied Drama modules. This annual programme continued long-term, partnering with a range of regional arts organisations and local secondary schools, providing outreach to support the devising curriculum. Later funded by the Widening Participation office, this programme linked with partners Doorstep Arts, Daisi (Devon Arts in Schools Initiative), the Exeter Northcott Theatre, and over 30 regional schools. Over the years it has reached over 8,500 local young people, encouraging them to study drama, create original work, and take it to a professional stage.

2018

The department celebrates 50 years of the study of Drama, with a year-long series of events looking forward as well as backward. Photographs of celebratory events with alumni and staff are available on this page. 

Academic and professional services colleagues who have joined the department since the 40^th anniversary in 2008 and are on staff in 2018 include Cariad Astles, Trish Barber, Katie Beswick, Bryan Brown, Adrian Curtin, Sarah Goldingay, Rebecca Hillman, Emily Kreider, Kate Newey, Ilaria Pinna, Lewis Plumb, Heike Roms, Tony Lidington, Evelyn O’Malley, Olya Petrakova, Kara Reilly, Konstantinos Thomaidis, Cathy Turner, and Erin Walcon.

The first issue of the T3 Journal is published. This journal gathers critical and creative writing by Drama students and is edited by Katie Beswick and Cathy Turner. Issue 1 of the journal is available online here.

2019

MA Creativity: Innovation and Business Strategy launches. This programme is administered by Drama. Its co-directors are Anna Kiernan and Michael Pearce.

2020

A joint honours programme in Drama and Film begins.

In the 2020/2021 academic year, much teaching is delivered online, with limited in-person or hybrid teaching, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students and staff engaged in in-person sessions wear masks or face shields and observe physical distancing guidelines. You can watch an example of a final-year Practical Essay project created in 2021 that addressed the pandemic here.

2022

A green stage is planted near Roborough for outdoor performance and teaching. This initiative is led by Evelyn O’Malley and Cathy Turner, with support from Jon Primrose.

Following university restructuring, Drama joins with Communication Studies and Film to become the Department of Communications, Drama and Film (CDF), part of the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS).

2023

TS1 in the Alexander Building is named The Phillip Zarrilli Studio, to honour the contributions of Professor Zarrilli (who died in 2020) to the department.

2024

A memorial event is held at Thornlea for Honorary Professor of Drama, Dr. John Somers.

The administrators’ office in the Alexander Building in Thornlea is closed. Rannoch, which has latterly been occupied by the university art society, is renovated and used for staff offices. TS5 is re-purposed as a screening room.