I am currently Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Glasgow.
Focusing on contemporary and c20th performance, my teaching combines traditional university formats – lectures and seminars – with practice-based workshops. This approach is grounded in the belief that theory, history and practice can inform each other, and that performance can be used to ask and answer questions in the same moment. My areas of expertise include LGBTQ performance, political theatre, documentary and verbatim practices, as well as devising and improvisation.
From 2013 to 2017, I led the first year Theatre Studies programme at the University of Glasgow before moving in 2018 to convene our postgraduate taught programmes in Theatre Studies and Playwriting & Dramaturgy (while continuing to contribute to Honours level teaching across the School of Culture and Creative Arts).
My current specialist options include Queer Exceptions – a course about performance, queer theory and ideas of the ‘singular subject’ – and The Activist Stage, an applied and social theatre course which examines the relationships between performance and activism.
In 2018, I was part of the working group which developed new guidelines for preventing sexual harassment in university drama departments. You can read these guidelines on the SCUDD website.
New: Action on anti-racism in UK theatre, dance and performance studies