Project Team
Principal Investigator
Liz Tomlin is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Glasgow where she specialises in the analysis of British and European contemporary theatre through the lens of political and cultural theory. Her key works include Acts and Apparitions: Discourses on the Real in Performance Practice and Theory 1990 – 2010 (Manchester University Press, 2013); British Theatre Companies 1995 – 2014 ed. (Bloomsbury Methuen, 2015) and Political Dramaturgies and Theatre Spectatorship: Provocations for Change (Bloomsbury Methuen, 2019). Liz was the principal investigator of the AHRC Research Network Incubate Propagate which brought together arts policy makers and funders, theatre producers and academics to investigate pathways to emerging artist development programmes and platforms for those without university backgrounds and training. She co-edits, with Trish Reid, the forthcoming Cambridge University Press series Elements in Theatre, Performance and the Political. She was previously a playwright and director with Point Blank Theatre (1999 – 2009) and has published that body of work in Point Blank (2007).
Project Assistant
Abigail Jensen is pursuing her Master of Letters in Playwriting and Dramaturgy at the University of Glasgow. Originally from the United States, she is a recipient of the Alasdair Cameron Scholarship and is her postgraduate cohort’s student representative.
Advisory Board
Katie Beswick is a writer and academic, currently working as Programme Director Acting and Performance at Wimbledon College of Arts. Her research and writing concerns issues of class and culture - she is the author of the books Social Housing in Performance (Methuen 2019) and (with Conrad Murray) Making Hip Hop Theatre.
Pippa Frith is an award-winning Independent producer based in Birmingham. She is Executive Producer for the acclaimed Fierce - who produce a biennial provocative Fierce Festival of performance. Fierce are a consortium partner on Horizon: Performance Created in England - presented at the Edinburgh Festivals. As an Independent Producer she has an extensive track-record of producing theatre, but has also worked in live art, dance, music, spoken word and circus. More recently she has produced a series of podcasts. She likes work that sits on the boundaries and challenges preconceptions about the world around us.
She has been a visiting lecturer across a number of universities including the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City University. She is a board member of Geese Theatre Company, and sits on Area Council (midlands) for Arts Council England.
Alison Gagen is a Theatre Relationship Manager for Arts Council England (ACE), based in the Midlands. She has worked with many different types and sizes of organisations during her 20+ years at ACE, including small touring companies, children’s theatre companies, TIE companies, and all sorts of producing theatres and festivals. She has particular experience of developing and supporting artist development programmes; new writing; artistic director recruitment, independent theatre company development, producer development. Alison has also been seconded to Warwick Arts Centre, programming the studio there, and has trained as a Coach. Before joining ACE she worked in theatre marketing, children’s theatre, new writing and touring.
Jenny Hughes is Professor in Drama at the University of Manchester (UK). Her research engages with the intersections of socially-engaged performance, economic justice and social change agendas. She has published on applied and social theatre, activist theatre and performance, and theatre in sites of war. Recent publications include a co-authored book, Theatre in Towns (Routledge, 2022) - a key output of the collaborative AHRC project, ‘Civic Theatres: A Place for Towns’ (2021-2022).
Dave O’Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Sheffield. He is co-investigator at the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (AHRC PEC), and the AHRC funded Impact of COVID-19 on the Cultural Sector research project. He has published extensively on inequality in the cultural sector, including his latest book Culture Is Bad for You, which is co-authored by Dr Mark Taylor and Dr Orian Brook, and the Creative Majority report on what works to support diversity in the creative industries, published by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Creative Diversity.
Adelina Ong is an applied performance researcher who has been working with young people from low-income families in Singapore, London, Hong Kong and Japan. Her current research builds on a theory of compassionate mobilities, a theory for negotiated living developed through participatory practice research inspired by urban arts (street dance, skateboarding, graffiti, parkour/art du déplacement). Her current practice research includes the development of synthetic applied performance and placemaking practices in the metaverse and is used to initiate conversations about the mental wellbeing of young people in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. She has co-edited a special issue of RiDE ‘On Access’ with Colette Conroy and Dirk Rodricks and is currently co-editing Performing Homescapes, an edited collection for Palgrave Macmillan with Prof. Sally Mackey.
Sivamohan Valluvan is Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Clamour of Nationalism (Manchester University Press, 2019). His work centres on the themes of racism and nationalism, with a complementary profile in general social and cultural theory.
Satnam Virdee is Professor of Sociology at the University of Glasgow. His recent research has focused on the convoluted relationship between racialization, class and capitalism over the longue durée. He is the author of 6 books including Racism, class and the racialized outsider (Palgrave, 2014). His new book (co-authored with Brendan McGeever), is entitled Britain in fragments: Why things are falling apart and will be published by Manchester University Press in April 2023.