Research in this subject area focuses mainly on contemporary theatre and performance practice, spanning the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It incorporates interrogations of text-based practices, such as the work of Samuel Beckett, directorial strategies and approaches to making theatre, and work on interculturalism, alongside research on more avant-garde and experimental performance practice, such as live art. The research team are a mixture of academics and practitioners, so our work is spread across theoretical ideas and concepts, and practice-as-research. Current areas of specialisation include critical theory, the intersections of performance and medicine, gender and identity, autobiography and performance, time, temporality and duration in performance, resistant art/performance strategies, performance ontology, and digital performance.

Researchers regularly participate in conferences and have work published in journals, such as Performance Research, New Theatre Quarterly and Feminist Review, as well as in edited collections. Performance work has been shown across the UK, India, Portugal, Cyprus and the USA. We are also participants in and contributors to various University research centres and units, such as the Cultures of the Digital Economy Research Institute (CoDE), as well as members of networks and organisations outside the University, such as TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association) and SCUDD.

The Theatre and Performance Studies team consists of the following staff members. Select an individual to discover more about their research activities and publications.

• Dr Gianna Bouchard
• Dr Nigel Ward
• Dr Sarah Whitfield
• Dr Sue Wilson

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