Theatre & Performance Studies News
In Memoriam - Professor Jim Davis
It is with a very heavy heart that we write to let you know that Professor Jim Davis passed away on Saturday 4th November following a stroke. Everyone who had the pleasure of encountering Jim will appreciate that this is a huge loss for his family, friends, colleagues, collaborators and the wider research community. He was a fantastic scholar and unwavering champion for the discipline and theatre historiography. He was such an important part of the Theatre and Performance family at the University of Warwick and will be missed for his leadership, mentorship, friendship and unfailing sense of fun and mischief.
Jim Davis joined Warwick in 2004 as Head of Department (2004-2009) after eighteen years teaching Theatre Studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where he was latterly Head of the School of Theatre, Film and Dance. In Australia he was also President of the Australasian Drama Studies Association and member of the Board of Studies of the National Institute of Dramatic Art. Prior to leaving for Australia he spent ten years teaching in London at what is now Roehampton University. He co-organised many conferences including for the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR) in New South Wales and at Warwick. He convened Historiography Working Groups for both IFTR and for TaPRA. He served as an editor for the journal Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film.
He published widely and with considerable critical acclaim in the area of nineteenth-century British theatre. His most recent bookComic Acting and Portraiture in Late-Georgian and Regency England (2015) won the TaPRA David Bradby Prize for Research in International Theatre and Performance in 2017 and was shortlisted for the 2015 TLA George Freedley Memorial Award. His other publications include Theatre & Entertainment (2016), Dickensian Dramas: Plays from Charles Dickens Volume II (2017) and European Theatre Performance Practice Vol 3 1750-1900 (editor, 2014). He was also joint author of a study of London theatre audiences in the nineteenth century Reflecting the Audience: London 1840-1880 (2001), which was awarded the 2001 Theatre Book Prize. He contributed numerous chapters including essays on nineteenth-century acting to the Cambridge History of British Theatre and on audiences to the Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre. He also published many articles in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Theatre Notebook, Essays in Theatre, Themes in Drama, New Theatre Quarterly, Nineteenth Century Theatre, Theatre Research International and The Dickensian. He was also responsible for many of the theatrical entries in The Oxford Readers' Companion to Dickens and contributed to the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Theatre and Performance, The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Stage Actors and Acting and the New Dictionary of National Biography. For several years he wrote an annual review of publications on nineteenth-century English Drama and Theatre for The Year's Work in English Studies.
An event to celebrate Jim’s life and work was held on 6 January 2024 12pm-4pm in the Studios in the Faculty of Arts Building on the University of Warwick's campus.
Guardian highlights the prominence of Warwick theatre at the Edinburgh Festival 2015
In an article entitled ‘What is it about Warwick? How one university is dominating Edinburgh's political theatre’ Andrew Haydon examines the prominence at this year’s Edinburgh Festival of theatre companies emerging from the University of Warwick, made up of both recent graduates and current students.
Recent graduate Holly Webley-Naylor is co-creator of alternative auction collective Marbles & Ware
MARBLES & WARE I auctions //events //experiences from james corbin on Vimeo.
Holly Webley-Naylor, who studies Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick, has gone on to found Marbles & Ware, a London-based collective that creates “immersive, theatrical and affordable live events to bring the work of previously unseen contemporary artists to a wider audience. Our work is a direct response to the formality and stuffiness of an outdated system – an attempt to revitalise the art market and engage a new generation of artists and collectors. Bidders Bizarre – our quarterly auction – reflects the vibrancy and originality of the work on sale. It brings new art to new audiences in a larger-than-life auction house, where every purchase tells a story and nothing’s quite as it seems…Artists, performers and our growing community lie at the heart of everything we do.”
Their next event is the Southern Wilds Exhibition, Auction & Bazaar at The Vaults. More info here: http://www.the-vaults.org/#!southern-wilds/c1kmh
Alumnus Matt Stokoe will be the new head of the Red Guard in Series 3 of BBC's The Musketeers.
Matt Stokoe, who graduated from Theatre and Performance Studies in 2010, will take on the role of new head of the Red Guard in Series 3 of BBC's The Musketeers.
Recent graduates Gwilym Lawrence and Soraya Jane Nabipour present The Gods of Pick 'n' Mix with Moor Theatre Delicatessen, Sheffield
'The Gods of Pick 'n' Mix' is a new piece of theatre taking place in the basement of the old Woolworths on the Moor in Sheffield, from 14th - 18th July. Offering you the chance to head behind the scenes of the much-loved store, the piece explores the unique place Woolworths still holds in many people's hearts and the brutality of its sudden disappearance both for customers and staff. Navigating loss, aspiration and nostalgia, 'The Gods of Pick 'n' Mix' asks: what can we really know about a thing, or a person, once they're gone?
In making the show, Sad Siren Theatre gave pick 'n' mix to the people of Sheffield in exchange for their stories, memories and recollections of the old store.
'The Gods of Pick 'n' Mix' is supported by Arts Council England and Theatre Delicatessen.
Theatre and Performance Studies alumni Gwilym Lawrence and Soraya Jane Nabipour are Sad Siren Theatre : www.sadsirentheatre.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/sadsirentheatre?ref=hl
