Theatre and Performance Studies News

Dickensian Dramas: Plays from Charles Dickens Volume 2, edited by Jim Davis, has just been published by Oxford University Press. Volume 1, which appears simultaneously, was edited by Jacky Bratton of Royal Holloway College, London.

Jim’s chapter on ‘Social Functions’ in A Cultural History of Theatre in the Age of Empire 1800-1920, edited by Peter Marx and published by Bloomsbury, has also just appeared.

Nicolas Whybrow gave a 45-minute talk entitled 'Contemporary Art Biennials in Europe' at the symposium The Biennial Effect: Biennials and Place-making, The Box, FarGo Village, 19th October 2017.

Carolyn Deby (sirenscrossing) created a performance adventure entitled urbanflows (wish you were here). 'Taking place within everyday spaces of Coventry, this piece invites you to traverse the flows of the city, to notice how you simultaneously merge with, and leave traces. Enter secret vantage points and encounter the unexpected. The city never settles, nothing is built to last. You were here.' Urbanflows (wish you were here) ran from 10 - 13 October. Commissioned by Sensing the City at Warwick University, with support from Coventry Artspace Partnerships Central Taxis of Coventry, and Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art. Created by artists Carolyn Deby and Jia-Yu Corti.

Michael Pigott had a set of three prints entitled The Future is a Waste of Time in the main exhibtion at the CET Building. This triptych of prints take the imagined futures of Coventry as their starting point, overlaying text onto photographic and illustrated visions of the city.

The School is sorry to announce the death of Michael Booth, who served for ten years from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s as the first Professor of Theatre Studies at Warwick. Michael was a leading scholar on nineteenth-century British theatre, many of whose publications are still essential reading for academics and students working in the area today. His many books included English Melodrama, Hiss the Villain, English Plays of the Nineteenth Century (5 volumes), Victorian Spectacular Theatre, Victorian Theatrical Trades and Theatre in the Victorian Age. He also co-edited an anthology of essays on Edwardian theatre. He is remembered at Warwick for his collegiality, his early consolidation of Theatre Studies within the university and his strong support of Warwick Arts Centre. He was also extremely supportive of and generous to fellow researchers and early career scholars working on nineteenth-century theatre studies.