Theatre & Performance Studies News
TOP STORY: Professor Nicolas Whybrow is Retiring
Professor Nicolas Whybrow is retiring early at the end of October 2020 owing to recent ill health. He is a long-time member of Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick, joining in February 2004. A former Head of School (2014-2017), Nicolas taught across a range of modules, most notably Performance and the Contemporary City and Live Art and Performance. In 2010 he won the Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence.
Nicolas played a leading role in the University’s research culture, being appointed as thematic lead for two of its GRPs, Sustainable Cities and Connecting Cultures. In 2017-2020 he was the PI on a 3-year AHRC-funded practice-as-research project entitled Sensing the City, which culminated in a multi-medial exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry and an edited book, Urban Sensographies (2021). Meanwhile, his book Contemporary Art Biennials in Europe: the Work of Art in the Complex City appeared in 2020.
Further details about Nicolas are available on his staff profile on the Theatre and Performance Studies website. Happily, he retains his connection to the University as Emeritus Professor.
Alumnus Tom Fowler has had his work featured in the Royal Court's #LivingNewspaper Edition 2
The Royal Court's #LivingNewspaper Edition 2, includes playwright Tom Fowler, who did his BA in Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick. Find out more here: https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/livingnewspaperedition2/
Student Olivia Kershaw Sings at Prestigious Musical Theatre Event
Last week Olivia Kershaw was selected to sing as part of the following event:
SING FOR MENTAL HEALTH: Starring Emma Hatton, Aisha Jawando and Rebecca Trehearn
A night of Musical Theatre to raise money for charity, headlined by West End leading ladies, Emma Hatton, Aisha Jawando and Rebecca Trehearn and featuring New UK Musical Theatre writing and emerging talent! This concert will raise funds for Applause for Thought and Industry Minds to offer mental health support in our industry. Please give what you can: https://donorbox.org/sing-for-mental-health-raising-funds-for-industry-minds-and-applause-for-thought
Streaming live on December 16th. Curtain up at 7.45pm!
The show also features music by new UK Musical Theatre writers, Darren James Clark, Tim Sutton, Eamonn O’Dwyer, Amir Shoenfeld, Gus Gowling, Emily Rose Simons, Poppy Burton-Morgan, Caroline Wigmore and Jennifer Green
Plus, emerging talent selected from our competition held by The Sing Space:
selected by the writers… Lizzy Parker, Madeleine MacMahon, Bridgette Amofah, Joanna Clarke, Rebecca Scott and Ros Ford
selected by casting director, Debbie O'Brien…. Bethany Bartholomeusz and Olivia Chloe Kershaw
PhD candidate Sky Herington wins the prestigious TaPRA Postgraduate Essay Prize
In December 2020, it was announced that Sky Herington has won the Theatre and Performance Research Association's prestigious Postgraduate Essay Prize. Sky's essay is called 'Grotesque Bodies & Subversive Healing: The Politics of the Belly in Two Plays by Sony Labou Tansi'.
Addressing Food System Issues through Drama and the Creative Arts': A Webinar
Registration now open for the second
Food Global Research Priorities webinar!
University of Warwick
Coventry, UK
Wednesday 16th December @ 8pm GMT
'Addressing Food System Issues Through Drama and the Creative Arts'
The Food GRP’s second webinar, focusing on the Food Cultures theme, features Mary Swander, Distinguished Emerita Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University and award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction. Swander is the Artistic Director of Swander Woman Productions, a theatre company that performs dramas about food and farming, and Executive Director of AgArts, a non-profit designed to imagine and promote healthy food systems through the arts.
In 'Addressing Food System Issues through Drama and the Creative Arts', Swander will highlight her success touring agricultural dramas throughout the United States, raising awareness about issues in the food system. She will discuss her plays Farmscape, Vang, and Map of my Kingdom that confront agricultural topics from livestock confinement to immigration to farmland succession. Currently, she is continuing her creative exploration of agriculture through a podcast called AgArts from Horse and Buggy Land, filled with storytelling about the Amish and interviews with farmers and others making artistic imprints on the rural environment.
The webinar will take place on Wednesday 16 December 2020, 20:00-21:00hrs via MS Teams and will be followed by a Q&A session. To register, please go to: https://warwick.ac.uk/research/priorities/food/webinars/maryswanderreg