Dr Bobby Smith
Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance
Email: bobby dot smith at warwick dot ac dot uk
Phone: (+44) (0) 24 7652 3021 (Ext. 23021)
Faculty of Arts Building
University of Warwick,
Coventry, CV4 7HS.
Office Hours
Tuesday 3.30pm (in my office)
Email me if you need to meet outside of these times.
About
I am a practitioner and researcher interested in exploring social action and change through arts, performance and storytelling. I studied applied theatre at the Central School of Speech and Drama before a Masters in global development at Leeds. The challenges and issues of working on development projects led me to undertake a PhD at Manchester, where I was based between the drama department and Global Development Institute.
I joined Warwick in 2019, and before working in universities I was a freelance community artist and workshop facilitator using arts-based approaches across a diverse range of projects. These included violence prevention, sex and relationships and drugs education for organisations such as Tender Education and Arts, theatre and film projects in criminal justice settings, particularly with young people, and creative approaches to peace and conflict. I was involved with Creative English - a national volunteer-led project using drama to support migrants and refugees to develop a sense of belonging and to build their English skills - for several years. I also devised theatre for and with different groups, including forum theatre about HIV/AIDS and gender-equality and performances for young audiences. In 2017 I supported a forum theatre project with young people experiencing homelessness, which was led by Cardboard Citizens in Manchester. This supported me to develop my awareness of, and skills in, Theatre of the Oppressed and I was then employed to continue working with this group. I am occasionally still involved in arts projects outside of the university/my academic research - for example, in 2024 I contributed workshops on movement as part of a co-created project How’s the Weather in your Head, led by Becky Warnock in collaboration with Chisenhale Gallery and young people who had experienced struggles with their mental health.
Alongside facilitating and creating projects, I also coordinated and managed several initiatives, including an arts-based project supporting young people at risk and an international participatory photography and development programme. I have trained people in the use of arts-based approaches and developed handbooks and resources for several charities internationally and have been part of projects in the UK, Kenya, Hong Kong, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi.
These experiences and my ongoing collaborations inform both my teaching and research, which aim to examine the claims made for applied and socially engaged performance and support artistic and creative approaches to education and social action. I have published widely on applied and socially engaged performance, particularly on theatre and global development, violence, and the climate crisis. Much of my work has been co-written with collaborators in other disciplines or with artists and practitioners. I am a co-editor of the journal ATR: Socially Engaged Performance
Professional Associations
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Administrative RolesDirector of Postgraduate Taught programmes, SCAPVC Course Leader MA Applied Theatre: Arts, Action, Change |
Qualifications
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Research interestsMy research and practice is participatory and rooted in community and the co-creation of knowledge and art. My research interests include: theatre, arts and global development; arts and peace; violence; climate crisis; socially engaged arts, storytelling and justice; arts-based facilitation practices; documentary theatre; theatre, performance and activism. I am currently working with Dr Maeline Le Lay (CNRS, France) on a new edited book, Applied Theatre: Peace & Conflict (due 2027/28), which grew out of an AHRC-funded research network called Stages of Violence, which we co-led between 2021-2023. This involved a series of transnational exchanges in Kenya, Northern Ireland and Rwanda concerning arts, violence, and conflict prevention with a number of artists and cultural institutions - many of whom I continue to work with. I have been involved in several practice-based and collaborative projects, most recently:
In my next major research project, I will engage in research on a wide range of international case studies, alongside a Practice as Research approach, to examine how socially engaged arts represent and reconfigure violence and justice under the conditions of the global polycrisis. I currently supervise PhD students working on topics including climate crisis, co-creation and performance with refugee communities. |
PublicationsBook 2024 Theatre and Global Development: Performing Partnerships, Palgrave https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55725-5 Edited collections and journal issues 2024 Special issue of Research in Drama Education - 'Confronting the Global Climate Crisis: Responsibility, Agency, and Action', co-edited with Rachel Turner-King https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/crde20/29/2 2024 Applied Theatre and the Sustainable Development Goals: Crises, Collaboration and Beyond, co-edited with Taiwo Afolabi and Abdul Karim Hakib, Routledge https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003334842Link opens in a new window Journal articles and chapters 2025 'From participation to partnership: Fostering agency in a peace building project in Western Kenya', co-written with Maxwel Okuto in Applied Theatre: Participation, edited by Taiwo Afolabi. Bloomsbury Methuen. Doi: 10.5040/9781350436558.ch-9 2024 'Engaging youth with the climate crisis: Playful tactics for dialogue and devising', co-written with Rachel Turner-King in Global Climate Education and its Discontents: Using Drama to Forge a New Way, edited by Kathleen Gallagher and Christine Balt. Routledge. Doi:10.4324/9781032615714-5 2024 'With One Breath: Creating art on the climate crisis between the UK and Uganda', co-written with Hussein Maddan, Becky Warnock and Rachel Turner-King in Routledge Handbook of Arts and Global Development, edited by Vicki-Ann Ware, Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta, Tim Prentki, Wasim Al Kurdi, and Patrick Kabanda. Routledge. Doi: 10.4324/9781003289838Link opens in a new window 2023 ' Keeping the Peace? Perspectives from Kenyan practitioners working in applied performance and peacebuilding on project challenges, funding, and support', co-written with Maxwel Okuto, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. Doi: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569783.2023.2211932 2022 'Performing Violence, Devising Futures? Performance with and by young people in Rwanda and Uganda', co-written with Hope Azeda and Lillian Mbabazi in Routledge Companion to Theatre and Young People, edited by Selina Busby, Kelly Freebody and Charlene Rajendran. Routledge. 2022 'Performance and the transnational public sphere in Rwanda' in Cahiers de Litterature Orale, Doi: https://doi.org/10.4000/clo.10019 2021 'Water, sanitation and hygiene in refugee camps in Uganda: Photo essay', co-written with Hussein Maddan in Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2020.1792282 2020 'Conclusion/Provocations: Applied theatre and global/sustainable/development', Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2020.1804348 2017 ‘Performing Partnership: The possibilities of decentring the expertise of international practitioners in Theatre for Development Partnerships’, Applied Theatre Research, 5 (1): 37-51. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/atr.5.1.37_1 2017 'You have to do it - it's important! If you don't nobody will know what it's like!': A response to The House from an applied theatre practitioner', Studies in Theatre and Performance, 31 (1): 101-104. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14682761.2017.1282403 2017 ‘Reflecting on the Challenges of Applied Theatre in Kenya’, co-written with Maxwel Okuto, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22 (1): 292-300. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1293509 2015 ‘What’s in a Name? Shifts in Identity, Impact and Delivery in a National Volunteer-led Programme Using Applied Drama to Learn English’, co-written with Anne Smith, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 20 (4): 524-530. Other publications 2026 'Climate storytelling often ignores young people - arts-based research can change that' piece in The Conversation, https://doi.org/10.64628/AB.wkyrejc5v 2022 'Three reflections on facilitation' in Terms of Engagement, by Becky Warnock and Kate Watson |
Case Studies:
Teaching and SupervisionApplying Theatre (3rd year, Module Convenor) Postgraduate - MA Applied Theatre: Arts, Action, Change Theorising and Facilitating Applied Theatre: Ethics and Reflective Practice (Module Convenor) Emily Walsh (2020 - ) Applied theatre and neurodiversity (co-supervised with Prof Yvette Hutchison) Stephen Okpadah (Chancellor's Scholarship 2021 - 2025) Applied Theatre and climate justice in Nigeria (co-supervised with Prof Milija Gluhovic) AMM Noor-Us-Saiyem Khan (Leverhulme TRANSFORM Scholarship 2022 - ) Arts, participation, and refugees in the UK (co-supervised with Dr Xiaodong Lin) Josie Davies (M4C) Collaborative Doctoral Award with China Plate, hosted at Birmingham University (supervisory team including Prof Adam Ledger, Ed Collier, Dr Shahnaz Akhter) Ogohi Salifu (M4C 2025 - ) 'From Local Voices to National and Global Climate Action: a consideration of what we learn from Theatrical Intervention in Waste Management in Anyigba, Kogi State, Nigeria' (co-supervised with Dr Mouzayian Khalil and Prof Yvette Hutchison) |
Grants
2024 Acting on Climate: Growing youth eco-citizenship across the city and beyond - Total of £50,000 from Warwick Participatory Research and Place-based Research Funds (Co-I with Rachel Turner-King - PI - Education)
2022 British Academy and British Institute of East Africa Knowledge Frontiers - Truth, Justice, Peace
2021-2023 Stages of Violence Research Network - Arts and Humanities Research Council, £45,000 (PI)
2022 ESRC Impact Acceleration - Acting on Climate, £35,000 (Co-I with Rachel Turner-King - PI - Education)
2021 With One Breath: Engaging young people in the UK and Uganda in Climate Crisis - Arts and Humanities Research Council, £10,000 (PI, with Rachel Turner-King - Co-I - Education)
2020 Coventry City of Culture Fund, £4,000 (with Rachel Turner-King - PI - Education)
2019 Theatre and Peacebuilding in Kenya - IAS Award, £4,700 (with Maxwel Okuto, Amani People's Theatre)
2019 Challenges of theatre and peacebuilding in Uganda and Rwanda - GCRF, £4,000
2016 British Council and Arts Council England International Artists' Development Fund, £5,000
2015 PhD Scholarship, University of Manchester
2011 MA Scholarship, Leeds University