I joined the Drama Department at Kent in September 2009. Before this I spent two years as a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Nottingham, and four years as an Associate Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter where I had also gained both my Undergraduate BA (Hons) First in Drama and my PhD.

My research focuses on long eighteenth-century theatre performance. I also have research interests in applied drama and I am currently working on a project exploring applied drama in the workplace, drawing on previous experience working in applied drama contexts and in private sector business.

As a teacher I strive to develop innovative new modules and engage students with studying theatre history from new, and often practical perspectives. As such my research is integral to my teaching and the synergies between these two areas are a central feature of my work. In Spring 2011 I was awarded the Humanities Faculty Teaching Prize for my work on integrating new technology with archival research in teaching theatre history. I have also won the best teacher award under the 2011 Kent Union Teaching Award Scheme.

I am the Drama Rep on the Recruitment, Marketing and Internationalization Committee and Library Rep for Drama.

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• The Wiley Encyclopedia of Eighteenth-Century Literature: Drama (in progress), Associate Editor
• Year's Work in English Studies (Vol. 88 - present), Reviewer for Restoration Drama
• Actresses and the Eighteenth-Century Stage: Playing Women Palgrave Macmillan, in progress

Essays

• 'Theorizing the Woman Performer' in The Oxford Handbook to the Georgian Playhouse 1737-1832 (OUP) in progress
• 'One entire nation of actors and actresses' - Reconsidering the relationship of public and private theatricals', Nineteenth-Century Theatre and Film, Special Issue: Amateur Theatre Studies, forthcoming 2012
• 'The Divided Heart of the Actress' – Late Eighteenth-Century Actresses and the 'Cult of Maternity', in Stage Mothers, ed. by Elaine McGirr and Laura Engel, in progress
• 'Early Eighteenth-Century Performance Historiography: Problems and Possibilities', Studies in Theatre and Performance, 31.1, (2011).
• 'Negotiating Marriage and Professional Autonomy in the Lives of Eighteenth-Century Actresses' Eighteenth-Century Life 35.2, (2011).
• 'Women and Theatre Management in the Eighteenth Century' in The Public's Open to Us All: Essays on Women and Performance in Eighteenth-Century England ed. by Laura Engel (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009)
• 'Your Sincere Friend and Humble Servant': Evidence of Managerial Aspirations in Susannah Cibber's Letters', Studies in Theatre and Performance, 28.2 (2008)

Reviews

• Rival Queens: Actresses, Performance, and the Eighteenth-Century British Theater by Felicity Nussbaum, Theatre Research International, 36.2 (2011).
• Review: Women's Romantic Theatre and Drama - History, Agency and Performativity edited by Lilla Crisafulli and Keir Elam (Ashgate: Farnham, 2010), New Theatre Quarterly 27(1), 2011
• Review: Ruskin, the Theatre and Victorian Visual Culture Edited by Anselm Heinrich, Katherine Newey and Jeffrey Richards. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, Theatre Research International 36.1
• Review: Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage Edited by Pamela Allen Brown and Peter Parolin (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, Theatre Research International 32.1 (2007)
• Women on Stage in Stuart Drama by Sophie Tomlinson (CUP: Cambridge, 2005), Theatre Research International 32.2 (2007)

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As a theatre historian much of my teaching focuses on the history and historiography of theatre and performance. I have particular interests in areas such as women’s involvement in theatre and performance, performances in fairs and in private contexts, drag and cross-dressing, race in historic performance, and ‘illegitimate’ performance and I explore areas like this in my modules. In teaching theatre history I place strong emphasis on both the use of new technology to bring history ‘to life’ and on practical engagement with archival sources so that students learn about the practice of history at the same point as they learn about the history itself. If you’d like to see some of the things we explore in the modules you will find a lot of information in the Moodle sites.

Modules I teach include:

• British Theatre 1860-1940
  
• English Theatre: Restoration to Victoria
  
• Places of Performance
  
• Performing History
  
• Theatres of the Past 1
  
• Theatres of the Past 2
  
• Texts for Theatre

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A significant part of my research focuses on long eighteenth-century theatre and performance and I am particularly interested in women’s involvement in theatre of the period. I am currently writing a monograph called Actresses and the Eighteenth-Century Stage: Playing Women which is due to be published with Palgrave in 2013 and which has been supported by a grant from the British Academy and from the Society for Theatre Research. The monograph examines therelationship between the eighteenth-century actress and changing notions of gender and within this I consider areas including female-to-male cross-dressing and drag performance, the economics of the stage, notions of physiognomy in relation to performance, and notions of the ‘natural’ in performance. In addition I am currently work on an essay entitled ‘Theorizing the Woman Performer’ for The Oxford Handbook to the Georgian Playhouse 1737-1832  and I am also the Restoration Drama Reviewer for the Year’s Work in English Studies and Associate Editor for Drama for the forthcoming Wiley Encyclopedia of Eighteenth Century Literature. I have previously published on areas including the relationship between actresses’ work and their choices in marriage (ECL, 2011); female rhetorical performance (STP 2011); and  women as theatre managers (Engel, 2009 and STP, 2008).

Another key area of my research is in applied drama and performance, which is where my practice was focused prior to my PhD. As well as drawing this field together with my interest in theatre history by exploring ways of researching history through and in performance, I am active in applied drama practice in its own right.  Since 2009 I have been Co-Investigator with Dr Nicki Shaughnessy on the Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise Project and I am currently supervising an MA by Research examining uses of digital technologies in rehearsal contexts.

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I am interested in supervising students working in any of my areas of interest, which include

• Performance history and theory
• Restoration and long eighteenth - century theatre and culture
• Victorian and Edwardian theatre
• Applied drama

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