Department of Drama and Theatre

Royal Holloway's Department of Drama and Theatre is one of the top research departments in the UK and has an international reputation for excellence. Its 23 academic members of staff are all active researchers, working at the cutting edge of the drama, theatre and performance studies. Our size and ambition allows us to range very widely in the cultures and histories of performance and the diversity of our work is shown in a lively and wide-ranging series of books, workshops, conferences, performances, research groups, journals, papers and appearances in the print and broadcast media. Our work has consistently achieved top ratings in all the national assessment of academic research and we attract top research students from across the world.

Research students take a leading role in our active research culture, co-organising events, collaborating in research projects, and sharing their own research with staff and other peers. They benefit from the breadth of expertise in the staff, the large postgraduate, an extensive programme of visiting speakers, workshops, research seminars and reading groups.

Research students are encouraged to participate in one or more of the department's research groups. Research students also take a leading role in Platform, a refereed electronic journal devoted to postgraduates, postdoctoral researchers, and entry-level academics in the fields of theatre and performing arts. Platform is run by postgraduates for postgraduates, and is based at the Department of Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway.

We have a commitment to engaging with the latest debates in the discipline and shaping the frontline methodological developments that continually transform academic writing on theatre and performance. Equally, we share a commitment to access and dissemination, finding ways to present high-level research in forms that can involve a wide audience in the debates taking place in our discipline.

The impact of our research is felt widely in academia and beyond, generating new kinds of theatre practice, new kinds of dialogue about the theatre, and reaching out into the community to offer high-level theatre engagement to groups otherwise marginalised by mainstream theatre.

In the latest Research Assessment Exercise (2008) the department has achieved an overwhelming majority of rankings in the top two categories, demonstrating research activity of world-leading 4* and International 3* significance and originality.