Dr Bobby Smith
Reader of Theatre and Performance Studies
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.
I will be away from Warwick on a research fellowship in Germany until July 2027
About
I am a practitioner and researcher interested in exploring social action and change through arts and performance. I joined Warwick in 2019 and, before working in universities, I was a freelance community artist and workshop facilitator working on a wide 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. 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 titled 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. 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 change.
My most recent projects have included collaborations with young people, artists, teachers and cultural organisations internationally to co-examine themes including climate crisis, land injustice, conflict and violence. At Warwick, I was the course leader for the MA Applied Theatre until 2026 and have also taken on school-wide roles including Director of Postgraduate Taught Degrees and Deputy Chair for Ethics. 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
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. From October 2026 until July 2027 I will be based in Munich at the Kate Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect for a project titled Spectacles of Violence. 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. |
PublicationsBooks and edited collections Forthcoming (2027/28) Applied Theatre: Peace & Conflict, co-edited with Maeline Le Lay 2024 Theatre and Global Development: Performing Partnerships, Palgrave https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55725-5 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 |
Teaching and SupervisionI have taught across undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at Warwick, mostly focussing on applied and socially engaged theatre and contemporary performance. I will not be teaching in 2026/27. Emily Walsh (2020 - ) Applied theatre and neurodiversity (co-supervised with Prof Yvette Hutchison) 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) Completed: Stephen Okpadah (Chancellor's Scholarship 2021 - 2025) Applied Theatre and climate justice in Nigeria (co-supervised with Prof Milija Gluhovic) |
Grants/awards
2026-27 Kate Hamburger Research Fellowship
2026 shortlisted for David Bradby Monograph Prize for Theatre and Global Development
2026 Creative resource on land justice, in partnership with Jukwaa Arts and Kenya Land Alliance - £10k Arts and Humanities Impact Fund, Warwick
2025 funding for Fair Play Festival and co-creation - Total £17k from a range of sources including impact funding and British Council
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