MA Performance Lighting Design

At RADA, you learn by doing. You will engage in hands-on, vocational training that immerses you in theatre production, ensuring you're fully equipped for success in the industry. Throughout your training, you'll receive personalised career guidance and professional development to develop your expertise and leadership.

This Master of Arts programme will enhance your creative and collaborative abilities while developing your technical craft. The programme’s three strands develop your identity as a creative practitioner, Lighting Designer and technical specialist.

Develop your creative practice

You will interrogate your craft and learn to evaluate the success of your own work. Alongside this you will refine and adapt your communication skills in collaborative theatre making. You will engage in collaborative experiences and develop interdisciplinary approaches to performance, enabling you to contribute meaningfully to creative processes, working with flexibility, imagination, and self-motivation.

Refine your skills as a Lighting Designer

You will further expand your practice-based knowledge and develop a repertoire of techniques within your design practice. You will expand your understanding of the industry and your place within it, all while creating work that aims to be original and aspires to the highest artistic standards. As you work with practitioners from other disciplines, you will lead on the value and contribution lighting design can make to performance. You will further develop your understanding of the cultural forms, traditions and contexts of lighting design.

Amplify your skills as Technical Specialist

The training will amplify your working knowledge of the theory, and use, of electrical and digital equipment that underpin lighting design for live performance, strengthening your ability to express your design intention through technical drafting and paperwork. As you develop your technical skills you will be equipped with transferrable skills for careers in other areas of performance production and the creative industries.

For more detailed information on course content, assessment and outcomes, download our Programme Specification.

Timetable and workload

The MA Performance Lighting Design is comprised of eight modules studied across four academic terms (one academic year and one term). Practical modules form the backbone of the programme, featuring work on four lighting designs for public productions, in an Associate Lighting Design and either a Production Electrician or Lighting Programmer role.

This programme is taught in-person, with at least 35 contact hours per week on average. Production periods may require longer hours, including evenings and weekends.

Training is mostly onsite at RADA with occasional online and offsite sessions. There is a professional work placement to springboard you into the industry.

Assessment

You will be assessed throughout the course on your progress. Assessment is provided through written feedback, peer review and tutorials. In the final term, reflection on the context and creative success of your work is undertaken in a viva voce with a panel of experts.

What will I learn?

• Cultivate your skills as an individual artist and develop skills in collaborative theatre making.
• Build a repertoire of lighting design techniques to prepare for a career of changing professional, technical and artistic expectations.
• Explore the cultural, social and artistic contexts of your work.
• Develop your creative practice, interrogate your craft and become a creative leader.
• Enhance your skills as a technical specialist and increase your working knowledge of the theory, electrical and digital equipment that underpin production lighting.

We encourage applications from people of any age, gender, disability, ethnicity, marital status, nationality, sexual orientation, parental status, socio economic status, religion or belief. We are committed to promoting equality and diversity, to pursuing non-discriminatory policies and practice, and eliminating unfair discrimination.

Entry Requirements

We require you to have appropriate educational degree level qualifications and/or professional work experience with demonstrated involvement in theatre, performance, or the broader entertainment industry.

Candidates must also meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Foundation Degree in Technical Theatre Arts and five years of relevant industry experience; or
• Bachelor's Degree (humanities or the creative arts preferred) and 1 year of relevant industry experience; or
• Five years of relevant industry experience.

Where you have a previous Bachelors or relevant Foundation Degree, you will be asked to provide details of these qualifications and upload relevant certificates, documentation and evidence.

Application deadline

Your application must be completed and submitted by 26 March 2025 at 11:59pm (UK time).

We operate a rolling admissions process, meaning that applications will close once our cohort is full so we encourage you to apply early. Depending on the volume of applications, a second deadline may be introduced.

Please download the admissions procedure guide for further information.

How to apply

1. Complete the online application form at the top of this page.
2. The admissions team will then contact you to either confirm an interview date or inform you if you were unsuccessful (please note that this could take up to six weeks).
3. If your application is successful, you will be invited to bring a portfolio to a 30-minute interview, on-site, at RADA

We do not charge an application fee for this course.

Information for disabled applicants

We welcome applications from disabled applicants and encourage them to disclose relevant information regarding any disability when completing their application form, to enable us to provide additional support during the admissions process. Find out more about the ways RADA support disabled applicants in our Student Life pages.

If you are a disabled applicant and would like further advice or guidance, please contact the admissions team directly on admissions@rada.ac.uk.

Postgraduate fees for MA Performance Lighting Design for the academic year 2025-6:

Home (UK) students
£18,500

International
£25,000

Please see the fees policy for more information about how RADA calculates tuition fee increases for each year of a course.

Find out more about funding your training.

Am I a Home (UK) or International student?

There are strict regulations regarding residency which must be met in order to qualify for Home (UK) student status.

Home (UK) student

In order to be classed as a Home (UK) student you normally need to meet all of the following criteria on the first day of the first academic year of the course:

• You are settled in the UK (this means there is no immigration restriction on the length of your stay).
• You are ordinarily resident in the UK, and have been for the full three years before the first day of the academic year (ordinarily resident means that your main home is in the UK, and you are choosing to live in the UK).
• The main reason for you being in the UK was not to receive full-time education.

Irish nationals who have been living in the Republic of Ireland or the UK can qualify for Home fees as long as they meet the residence requirements which can be found on the UK Council for International Students' (UKCISA) website.

International students

If you do not fall under the Home (UK) definition, then you will be classed as an international student.

International students coming to RADA on a full-time course of more than six months will require a Student visa before coming to the UK to start your course. Without the visa you will not be allowed to enter the UK. Please visit the UK Visas & Immigration website for further details.

The definitions on this page are only a very brief summary and there are a number of exceptions to the conditions listed. For more detailed information, please refer to the UK Council for International Student Affairs guide.

Other costs

Almost all materials and resources you require for your course, including travel for any trips, are included in your tuition fees.

Other material costs (not included in your tuition fee): approximately £300 + laptop

The things not covered include protective footwear, practice clothes, play texts and stationery.

International students will also need to pay for visa costs; please visit the UK Visas & Immigration website for further details.

Laptops, phone/tablet devices and related equipment

To participate in this course, including any online training, you will need to have suitable equipment.

Prices for laptops may vary but costs are likely to be in the region of £550 and upwards. Educational discounts are available, so we advise that you wait until you are enrolled before buying any new equipment. We recognise that not all applicants/ students will own this equipment or be in a financial position to purchase it. RADA, therefore, has ways in which we can provide you with support to ensure that you can access the equipment you need.

Please note that a laptop, phone/tablet devices and related equipment policy is being drawn up. More information is available from the admissions team by emailing admissions@rada.ac.uk.

Read our regulations and policies relating to admissions and current students here.