Building the Drama Department’s creative options

Far from being centre stage, as the new Head of the Drama Department at Rhodes University, Professor Andrew Buckland is throwing the spotlight on his fellow staff members. He describes them as a powerfully collaborative team that has grown in strength as a result of the collaborative leadership style of physical theatre practitioner Professor Gary Gordon.

Over the years the Department has identified a need to keep in step with the changes in the profession, for example, changes in funding structures have led to many changes in the ways in which artists work. Artists thus need to be given the tools to create their own work; they also need a solid grounding in stage management and set production among other behind-the-scenes activities.

“It is hard to define exactly where I intend to take Rhodes Drama. In many ways I will be implementing what has been discussed. Over the past four or five years there has been a strong move to build up the practical creative options for students from third-year level upwards.”

With average student numbers on a sliding scale from 100 in first year and 50 in second year to 40 in third year, 10 in Honours and four in masters, the ultimate aim is to build the postgraduate numbers.

“We are essentially a theatre studies department that specialises in the research and practice of theatre. And because this is a degree course, the students’ skills are not at the level at which they can fulfil their ideas about creating a production,” he said. As such the course is not a training ground for the profession and currently Masters students present a production which they initially propose as a piece of research and then go on to write up a thesis on it.

“I am looking to re-figure the target so that in the fourth year our students specialise and really get to grips with the skills required to produce theatre,” he said. “A clear understanding of the importance of training, and the recognition that an artist should take responsibility for his or her own training, will underpin the new courses.”

From 2011 Drama has been granted permission by the Dean of Humanities to run a Coursework Masters that places value on the oral as well as the literary traditions yet continues to keep a sharp eye on the academic rigour of the work. It is hoped the Masters programme will begin to attract arts practitioners as well as students. A further change to a more practically oriented four-year degree that aims to attract a specific type of student who is interested in the study of theatre has also received positive support from Rhodes.

Picture: New Head of the Drama Department, Prof Andrew Buckland.