Theatre & Performance Studies News
TOP STORY: Winners of WATE Award
The Arts Faculty Award recognises the achievements of Warwick's outstanding educators who have enabled excellent learning, creating the conditions within which all students are supported and empowered to succeed and thrive.
Winner - Ian Farnell (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)
My experiences as a student continue to inform my teaching practice. Central to this is my reliance on humour as a pedagogical tool – as noted in multiple research papers, laughter can create a welcoming and relaxed atmosphere in which students can confidently express themselves and interrogate their own preconceptions. I take my students’ learning seriously while approaching it lightly, and my caring, attentive and fun practice uniquely enables my students to grow as individuals, scholars and artists.
About Ian
Ian is an IAS Early Career Fellow and tutor in Theatre and Performance Studies. His thesis (completed in 2021 and funded by the Wolfson Foundation) explored British theatre and science fiction. Ian was a finalist for the 2021 WATE PGR and is delighted to be a WATE PGR winner.
Commended - Ronan Hatfull (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)
My teaching ethos, methods, and experiences traverse disciplinary boundaries across both Theatre and English. I teach first-year Theatre students and my work on ‘Your Theatre and Performance Toolkit’ has had positive impact upon their learning. My signature pedagogy on the module ‘Remaking Shakespeare’ is open-space learning (OSL), and more recently I have run a collaborative workshop for the Resonate Festival with students and professional theatre-makers.
About Ronan 
Ronan teaches at the University of Warwick and NYU London. He is also a theatre-maker and Artistic Director of Partners Rapt. Ronan is currently co-writing Shakespeare and Hip-Hop: Adaptation, Citation, Education, co-editing Shakespeare and Biofiction on the Contemporary Stage and Screen and developing a monograph on the Reduced Shakespeare Company.
Winner - David Coates (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)
In my teaching I bring both my research interests and industry experience to the table to create engaging, relevant and challenging sessions for my students in modules that have appropriate and authentic assessment methods. I am passionate about developing students who have their fingers on the pulse of current debates, research and the industry. However, I believe that ‘being an ‘excellent teacher’ means more than being effective in the classroom’ (Mortiboys, 136). I hope that I can have a long-term impact on my students and the ethos of my department through championing the importance of the wider university student experience; better embedding wellbeing, careers, industry, employability, and skills within the curriculum; and collaborating with students to foster a meaningful sense of community in Theatre and Performance Studies (TPS).
About David 
David is an Assistant Professor in Theatre and Performance Studies. He teaches and researches nineteenth-century theatre history, historiography, and queer theatre. As well as teaching core and specialist modules in the department, David has designed a skills-focused programme for first-year undergraduate students and an industry-focussed module in collaboration with Warwick Arts Centre.
More info here WATE Arts Winners (warwick.ac.uk)
TOP STORY: Winners of WATE Award
Winners of WATE Award
The Arts Faculty Award recognises the achievements of Warwick's outstanding educators who have enabled excellent learning, creating the conditions within which all students are supported and empowered to succeed and thrive.
Winner - Ian Farnell (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)
Commended - Ronan Hatfull (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)
Winner - David Coates (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)
Dr Julia Peetz, our Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, has been nominated for the prestigious TAPRA prize for her article
'The Counter-Theatricality of Right-Wing Populist Performance’, Studies in Theatre and Performance (2021): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682761.2021.1964818
Student Prizes 2021: Winners Announced
Congratulations to all of our students who are graduating this week. At our graduation ceremony we usually announce our Student Prizes. We have extended the list of prizes this year to reward group work and to acknowledge practice and research separately. As ever, we also want to acknowledge students who have contributed significantly to the Theatre and Performance Studies, the School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures, and the University during their time here. This year's prizes are as follows:
- Research Prize (Dissertation) Josh Myers
- Research Prize (Practice) Jana Azuipe
- Contribution Prizes: Hannah Khan, Lucy Chamberlain, Angelo Balagtas
- Group work prize for process: Niamh Mulcahy, Lyra Cooper, Elia Waymouth, Vishal Ratnajothy (Applying Theatre - Care Home Project)
- Group work prize for product: Adam Wilmhurst, Tabitha Collingridge, George Brown, Guillaume Massenet, and Ashwin Rupanagudi (Wired - Short Film).
Clive Barker Award 2021
Congratulations to our first year students, Jon-Luke Goodman and Cai Kennedy, who have successfully applied to this year's Clive Barker Award. Clive Barker was a pioneering theatre studies scholar. He worked with Arnold Wesker and Joan Littlewood and wrote influential books such as Theatre Games. He worked at Warwick from 1976 until he retired in 1993. This award is designed to provide practical and financial support for Theatre and Performance Studies students who plan to create a piece of extra-curricular performance, with a view to submitting this work to the Edinburgh Festival or a similar public platform.
Their project is provisionally titled The Awakening of Spring and will offer a modern adaptation and de-contextualisation of the play that inspired Spring Awakening; challenging traditional staging and theatrical conventions with heavy elements of technology, performance art and promenade elements. Taking Frank Wedekind’s 1890 play and transposing it into a 21st Century setting, inspired by the current movement in the light of the death of Sarah Everards’s tragic death. This abstract non-linear deconstruction will also be scrutinising the media, exploring social media and how this relates to physical, domestic and sexual violence.
The students will receive up to £600 to help mount the work and will be given access to rehearsal space and technical support.
Well done Cai and Jon-Luke. We look forward to seeing how this project develops!