IF you want to learn how to act, then the MA in drama studies at UCD is not for you. If you want to learn about the history and theory of theatre and stagecraft then it is. Up and running since.

1989, the drama studies centre has a very positive attitude to mature students and roughly 20 per cent of those on the MA programme fall into this category.

"We recognise that there are people out there with experience and talent which cannot be neatly academically defined," says the centre's director, Dr Dan Farrelly. "It's the policy of the arts faculty to make room for those who have achieved their qualifications by means other than the straight academic route and we find that these people normally tackle our course very well and compare very favourably with younger students who come to us straight from under-graduate degree programmes.

The programme is aimed at those involved or interested in drama from all points and perspectives. The backgrounds of those participating are diverse and the age range is from early twenties right up to sixty. In this year's intake there are students from as far afield as the United States, Australia and Japan. Some of the programme's graduates go on to teach drama or theatre studies, others direct or organise drama groups, others get involved in arts administration and others use it as a backdrop for further study.

"We're not trying to train actors," Farrelly stresses. "Our aim is to help our students to appreciate how the theories, traditions and history of the theatre in Europe all come together. Sure, we study things like voice and movement, but not to teach people how to become singers or dancers but to understand how these elements fit and function within the broad framework of theatre as a whole."

The wide-ranging course covers the broad sweep of European drama as well as focusing on specific aspects of the theatre and particular dramatists. For example, there is a unit on modern Irish drama as well as specific units on Brecht, Beckett and Friel.

The course extends over one academic year and assessment is by essays and a minor thesis. A number of students have come to the MA from the diploma course in drama studies at Maynooth, while it is also a potential follow-on course for those on UCD's modular BA programme.

TWO of the students coming to the end of this year's programme at UCD, Antoinette Duffy and Michael O'Halloran, are both Maynooth diploma graduates.

Duffy's recent background is in arts administration although she began her working life as a civil servant.

A performer, director, teacher and administrator, she had been contemplating an undergraduate course in drama studies at TCD when her attention was attracted by the MA course. "I felt I wanted to do a course of full-time study, but the idea of one year for the MA versus four years for the degree made a lot more sense for me unless I wanted to be drawing my pension by the time I finished," she says.

I've found the course both stimulating and frustrating and I've learned a lot. In particular I think I've learnt how to assess information objectively. I've become more discerning instead of being carried away with enthusiasm by every new idea."

At first Duffy found it difficult to write the essays. "I'd been away from studying for years, but I think the time I spent in Maynooth helped prepare me.

Overall, she has had a very exciting year. "I got a real buzz out of directing the class show. The course almost takes a literary approach to theatre which was strange for me with my performance oriented background, but I think it was a year well spent and I enjoyed the balance and mix of people in the class who helped make it a very lively time."

Michael O'Halloran, a former Golden Vale executive, is a self-employed marketing and PR consultant who has continued to work while commuting to UCD each week from Newmarket, Co Cork. "It was a bit of a logistical nightmare keeping all the balls in the air," he says, "but I have a very understanding family and very understanding clients who were most supportive."

O'Halloran has had a lifelong interest in the theatre and is director of Newmarket's drama group. He also teaches drama in local schools and he is campaigning to have the O'Keeffe Institute in Newmarket turned into an arts and cultural centre.

"The course was fantastic," he says. "It was tough and intensive in the sense that there was a lot of reading to get through, but it also had a very practical slant which I found very useful from both a directing and teaching point of view. The academic staff were extremely helpful and extremely generous with their time and talents. We all felt they were behind us and wanted us to do well," he says.