As time moves on, cultures change, education changes, departments change (2017-2020)
Written by Prof. Andy Lavender
By 2017 (and of course before) the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies was well established, with a strong identity for research and a flagship programme, the BA Theatre and Performance Studies. The work, then, was to refresh and extend what the Department did, while sustaining its areas of strength.
We embarked on three developments in particular. The first was to secure our student recruitment in a profoundly turbulent environment. Over this period, we saw departments suffer from dwindling student numbers, with some closing their theatre programmes. David Coates did a brilliant job as Admissions Tutor, working with colleagues to present an introduction to the programme that featured current students front and centre, included alumni who described their journeys within and beyond Theatre and Performance Studies, and made space for us to chat with parents and carers separately from the applicants themselves – all with a personal touch (helped, not least, by decent catering!) that convinced our visitors that this was indeed a special and caring place. There’s anguish in seeing other departments (and not that far from Warwick) struggling and closing, but into the 2020s Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick has bucked the trend and built its student recruitment, demonstrating its resilience in these testing times.
Part of the attractiveness of the programme lay in the scope of its offer. We completed a curriculum review and refresh, sustaining the model whereby colleagues offered modules in areas of interest and personal specialism that engaged students across theatre history, performance theory, contemporary theatre-making, playwriting, community and applied theatre, the study of theatre in specific settings, and in relation to social and political themes. In addition – in response to the increasing overlap between conservatoire and university provision, the desires of applicants to engage in theatre practice, and the pursuit of an all-round engagement with theatre as an embodied discipline – we introduced more opportunities for students to study and experience acting and performance processes, and expand their own creative practice. Natalie Diddams led the acting-oriented aspect of this work, and I was delighted when (after my time, and through the University’s wider programme of decasualising) Natalie, along with the estimable Saul Hewish and Caroline Griffin, became permanent members of staff. Saul does extraordinary work in prison and community settings, and Caroline is an arts marketing expert. The recognition of this work marks the department’s confidence in embracing various kinds of embodied and industry-facing practices. We also validated three MA programmes, two of which were launched in 2020 (MA Playwriting and Adaptation, and MA Applied Theatre: Arts, Action, Change). MA Creative Producing and Arts Management was left on the shelf, perhaps a victim of the pandemic.
Alongside this, we revisited the department’s longstanding relationship with Warwick Arts Centre and its relations with other companies and organisations. In liaison with Julia Carruthers, the Arts Centre's then Programme Director, we worked up a new end-of-degree festival for our students to present their work at the Arts Centre to a public audience. In addition, we extended our work with companies in Coventry, Leamington Spa and elsewhere, including Theatre Absolute, the Belgrade Theatre, Motionhouse, and more than 25 placement partners – making the boundaries between our university campus and the world of professional theatre activity as porous as possible. As part of this connection with industry we continued to reach out to our alumni, welcoming them back to the department for sessions where we drew on their perspectives as professionals regarding developments that we were considering, and providing opportunities for current students to be inspired and test out their own sense of possible journeys.
We embraced new colleagues as part of the established staff team (welcome, David Coates and Bobby Smith), celebrated Jim Davis’s grant of £600k from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to research theatre and visual culture in the Nineteenth Century, and raised a glass to colleagues for promotions through the ranks, publications, and productions.
How could we know that the Covid 19 pandemic was nearly round the corner? Not to mention wars in Europe and the Middle East, the cost-of-living challenge, the refiguring of the US (and therefore the way of things globally), and all that shapes our lives and experiences today. How Warwick's Theatre and Performance Studies team face all that (because surely it will) is for another chapter.
Images:
Cover: UWA/Photos/IV.B.4/1 Ros Merkin, Tracie Gilman, Phil Jones and Eric Maclennan with Kea Worvers in front in a performance of Caryl Churchill's 'Light Shining in Buckinghamshire' 28/29 April 1983 (course work for Theatre Studies, performed on the Westwood campus) in the Modern Records Centre.
Top left: UWA/Photos/VI.B/1/417 Dr Margaret Shewring and Professor Ronnie Mulryne with their book 'Making Space for Theatre'. 1995. Modern Records Centre.
Top right: UWA/Photos/IV.A.1/3/19 Paul Stevens and Ruth Jones (3rd Year Theatre Studies Students) in 'Casina' by Plautus (Latin slapstick revived after 22 centuries) 1990. Photo by Huw Evans. Modern Records Centre