Design for Theatre & Screen at UCA

Tell stories, build worlds, and create characters on our exciting BA (Hons) Design for Theatre & Screen degree course at UCA Farnham.

On this course, we nurture imaginative and divergent thinkers, offering you the time, conditions, and support to find your creative voice and develop the confidence to say what you want to design and create with authenticity.

You’ll engage with and respond to stories – researching and exploring your own ways of telling them and experimenting to find the visual worlds where those stories could thrive. And you’ll have the opportunity to create the costumes and props that exist in those worlds, too. 

Our staff are practising theatre and film professionals, and with industry links to organisations like the Royal Opera House and National Theatre, you’ll gain the knowledge, skills, and experience to sustain your craft beyond university. 

 

Course entry options

Select from the following options to find out more about the different study options available for our BA (Hons) Design for Theatre & Screen degree:

Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W440
Campus
farnham
Start date(s)
September 2025, September 2026
Duration
3 years full-time
Entry requirements

112 UCAS Points

International equivalent qualifications

Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W44A
Campus
farnham
Start date(s)
September 2025, September 2026
Duration
4 years full-time
Entry requirements

UK: 32 UCAS points
International / EU: 12 years of schooling (with good grades)

Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W44C
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements
Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W441
Campus
farnham
Start date(s)
September 2025, September 2026
Duration
4 years full-time
Entry requirements

112 UCAS Points

International equivalent qualifications

Close
Institution code
C93
UCAS code
W44B
Campus
farnham
Start date(s)
September 2025, September 2026
Duration
5 years full-time
Entry requirements

UK: 32 UCAS points
International / EU: 12 years of schooling (with good grades)

Close
Institution code
C93
Campus
Start date(s)
Duration
Entry requirements

Upcoming webinars

We offer a range of webinars throughout the year that Design for Theatre & Screen students may be interested in.


This includes subject talks, masterclasses, application proccess advice and student life guides. Check out our upcoming webinars and book your place today.

Accreditations, partners and industry connections

National Theatre logo

National Theatre

The National Theatre has been sharing unforgettable stories for more than 50 years. In its role as the leader of theatre in the UK, it works tirelessly to bring theatre to audiences around the world and encourages the art of theatre through commissioned work, learning programmes and strategic partnerships.

Shakespeare’s Globe logo

Shakespeare’s Globe

Shakespeare’s Globe is a world-renowned theatre, education centre, and cultural landmark. Inspired and informed by the unique historic playing conditions of two beautiful iconic theatres, our diverse programme of work harnesses the power of performance, cultivates intellectual curiosity, and excites learning to make Shakespeare accessible for all.

British Film Institute (BFI) logo

British Film Institute (BFI)

The BFI is a charity and the UK’s leading organisation for film and moving image. It promotes and supports British film from newcomers to established makers, and cares for the BFI National Archive, the world’s largest film and television archive.

Equity UK logo

Equity UK

Equity is the UK’s performing arts and entertainment trade union, representing more than 47,000 performers and creative practitioners across the country, for more than 100 years.

THE HERDS logo

THE HERDS

THE HERDS is public art and climate action on a vast scale – an ambitious coming together of culture and climate to inspire action and reignite our connection with the natural world.

What you'll study

What you'll
study

The content of the course may be subject to change. Curriculum content is provided as a guide.

UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated Foundation Year

Theatre Design, Skills and Contexts
You’ll create an individual set and costume design response to a specified play. You’ll be introduced to studio practice through research, text analysis, interpretation, storyboard, and 2D/3D processes. You’ll also be introduced to the study histories, theories and practices that inform global performance design.

Equality Diversity and Inclusion
The unit provides an opportunity for you to explore what is meant by equality, diversity, and inclusion and the implications of these concepts for creative practice. It will equip students to understand how our social identities (such as gender, race/ethnicity, class, disability, sexual orientation, and religion) contribute to the inclusion and/or exclusion of individuals in creative spaces.

Design and Agency
This unit will engage you in responding collaboratively to a current socio-cultural issue. Through negotiating and adopting roles within a team, you will create either a time-based or installation-based response to a theme resonating with social justice, environmental concerns or related issues. This unit is all about collaborative working, enhancing awareness of current issues and stimulating resourcefulness in devising an effective response under time and resource constraints.

Screen - Design, Skills and Contexts
In order to develop an understanding of how different elements of a design contributes to a whole, you’ll explore a range of approaches, methods and techniques where creative manipulation and digital interventions promotes dramatic storytelling. You’ll practice the skills needed in costume-making, prop-making, and/or scenic art alongside skills in communication and co-working to develop a cohesive visual language. You’ll also build on your knowledge of histories, theories and practices that inform global performance and production.

Employment Contexts
You’ll be required to deliver an ‘industry report’ on chosen companies or individuals who are directly or indirectly involved in the performance industry, nationally or internationally. In order to begin the process of seeing yourself as part of the professional world, you’ll familiarise yourself with careers websites, be guided to subject-specific resources, and attend Careers and Employability sessions that are deemed relevant for your stage of learning.

Puppetry and Portfolio
Explore new performance design techniques and processes, and refine and develop current skills practice, through the creation of puppets. The unit facilitates opportunities for individual working or for collaborating within or outside of the cohort.

Core units

You will study the following core units:

Theatre or Screen - Adaptation
You’ll be challenged to transform a play text into a new speculative adaptation with contemporary resonance. You may choose to adapt across genres to create an original visual environment or form. Through a close reading and incisive investigation of a text’s contemporary resonance, you will develop the conceptual framework that will underpin the development of your project. Alongside this work you’ll develop your understanding of the critical and theoretical ideas within the context of modernity, postmodernity and post-colonialism. Through the examination of current critical perspectives on contemporary art, design, film and performance, we want you to consider ways in which contemporary work addresses the social and political issues of the day.

The Conscious Practitioner
This unit aims to promote progressive values and attitudes to diversity and inclusion in creative practice. You’ll have the opportunity to explore global perspectives and influences on creative practice, drawing upon interactions with varied identities, cultures, politics, and histories. The unit will explore how beliefs, values and attitudes drive behaviour and practices. Students will reflect on the development of their own creative influences, perspectives, practices, and sense of belonging as developing creative professionals in global and contemporary spaces.

Theatre or Screen – Making
This unit is all about turning design concepts into practical scenic elements. You’ll choose a specific discipline such as model-making, costume realisation, prop making, etc., to make scenic elements that interpret others’ designs – ensuring that what you make works conceptually but also practically. The unit allows for work to be individual or collaborative, speculative or live.

Professional and Collaborative Practice
This unit is all about expanding opportunities within the working world, with several options available. You can undertake a self-initiated work experience spell or placement, a collaborative project with external organisations, or a mix of both. Whichever you choose you’ll have to put together a Learning Agreement plan before you start, a private blog for critical reflection, and a reflective evaluation after you complete the task.

Elective units

There is a choice of elective units available and more details of the units available will be provided to you once on the course. Examples of elective units from previous years include:

  • Physical Theatre: You’ll work together with students from a wide range of courses to make a live physical theatre production. This could be further augmented by animated material or filmed material. TV or film students may also be involved capturing or streaming the performance.
  • Acting Through Song: You’ll learn and develop skills relevant to character and narrative-driven musical performance, rehearsing and performing a sharing that may include selected sequences from a play or plays with music or musical theatre.
  • Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Music and Theatre: This unit encourages interdisciplinary collaboration between Music, Acting & Performance, and Design for Theatre & Screen to plan, rehearse and deliver a live performance piece to an audience of peers and the public. This project puts music performance at the centre of the collaboration. 
  • Film Production: This unit is designed to provide learners with practical skills and knowledge in film production, with a focus on collaboration, professionalism, and self-reflection. The unit will culminate in a group film production project, where learners will have the opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge.
  • Cinematography: This unit is essential if you want to develop yuor skills in visual storytelling and creating compelling visuals for film and video. By taking this unit, you will learn the principles of cinematography and gain hands-on experience using industry-standard equipment to create professional quality visuals.
  • Script Writing: You’ll be introduced to a range of creative writing skills and, in particular, the highly visual medium of writing for film and television. You will view and compare the work of some of the industry’s most accomplished contemporary screen writers, learn how to present and format a script and write your own story outline for a short film, series or screenplay.

If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

While on your Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Please note: If you are an international applicant, you will need to enrol onto the course ‘with Professional Practice Year’. It will not be possible to transfer onto the Professional Practice Year after enrolment

Minor Project
You’ll undertake a design project within the context of a speculative performance, with the objective to synthesise knowledge, understanding, and practice acquired throughout the first two stages of the course. You may extend this through to your Major Project, with emphasis on developing the same text across both timelines. The unit will comprise three elements – project development, outcome, and professional preparation.

Critical investigation
Your development as a designer-maker is supported in this unit by enabling you to identify research that is contextually meaningful to your studio practice and to articulate critical arguments around this research. You’ll put together a 10 to 15-minute formative presentation of your research and lines of argument, and either a 5,000-word individually negotiated Critical Investigation or a 25 to 30-minute individually negotiated audio-visual presentation.

Opportunity Week
The final Opportunity Week comprises of a series of interdisciplinary lectures, seminars and workshops centred around life after graduation. This week will help students develop their understanding of the creative industries, working professional environment and what they can expect after graduation.

Self-directed Final Major Project
For your final project, your output may take a variety of forms. If you chose to work collaboratively through to production presentation/realisation within the Minor Project, you may now embark on a new design project. Or if you developed a comprehensive design proposal in the Minor Project, you can take that further to make fully realised artefacts for your portfolio. There are three elements to this unit – the unit agreement and research document, the creative outcome, and the professional portfolio.

This course is designed to offer you (if eligible) the opportunity to study part of your degree aboard at a UCA partner university, while still earning credits towards your UCA degree.

For more information please visit the Study Abroad section

Course specifications

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.

Fees & funding

Fees & financial support

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £9,535
  • BA course: £9,535

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2025 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,900. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £9,535 (see fee discount information)
  • BA course: £9,535 (see fee discount information)

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2025 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,900. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Tuition fees - 2025/26

  • Integrated Foundation Year: £16,950
  • BA course: £17,500

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2025 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £3,390. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

Please note: The fees listed on this webpage are correct for the stated academic year only, for details of previous years please see the full fee schedules.

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources. Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information.

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of the Course Information Document for more details of the costs you may incur.

Career opportunities

We’re committed to fully preparing you for a successful career in addition to supporting you with the preparation of your portfolio, CV and professional profile, we encourage you to undertake work placements. Our well-established industry connections include:

  • BBC
  • ITV
  • Propshop
  • Hothouse
  • Pinewood Studios
  • Evolution
  • The Royal Opera House
  • The National Theatre

Graduate career destinations for this course include:

  • Manufacturing
  • Self-employment
  • Buying
  • Gallery work
  • Designing
  • Marketing
  • Retailing
  • Production
  • Teaching.

You may also like to consider further study at postgraduate level.

What’s it like being a student at UCA?

That’s a big question. Get some answers from people who are studying right here, right now.

Chat to a student

Miriam Abou-Shehada

"The course taught me not only how to make props, sets and costumes, but how to give life to each of them. The wide variety of skills that are taught at UCA meant that I could be useful in many departments of theatres and film productions"

Miriam Abou-Shehada

Entry & portfolio requirements

We’ll need to see your portfolio for this course:

  • UK applicants: We will invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person.
  • International applicants: We will ask you to submit an online portfolio. 

View Design for Theatre & Screen portfolio advice

 

Select your country to find the equivalent requirements

Apply now

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