Duška's current research interests include contemporary British and European theatre practice as well as more specifically, ensemble theatre and dramaturgy.

Prior to returning to academia, Duška has worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company where she engaged with the issues of kinaesthetic learning and teaching innovation at university level. Between 2002-2005, as the Dramaturg at the Northern Stage Ensemble and Newcastle University, she worked with a selection of local, national and international writers and theatre artists on devised and new writing projects and was instrumental in programming The Newcastle Gateshead Gypsy Festival and the Barcelona Connection. Since 1998, Duška has been a member of The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence panel of judges at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and has written over 700 theatre and dance reviews for the Stage Newspaper.

As a freelance dramaturg, Duška has worked for New Writing North, Dance City, Dramaturgs' Network and the National Student Drama Festival. Her long term research interest in theatre translation led to a collaboration with the West Yorkshire Playhouse on the production of Huddersfield by Uglješa Šajtinac – the first Serbian play ever to be produced in Britain. In the early stages of her career, Duška was also involved as a performer and director with a number of young theatre companies both in the north of England and in her native Yugoslavia. Duška is the author of Beginners' Serbo-Croatian and co-author of Serbian Phrasebook and Dictionary (Hippocrene Books, New York), and maintains a publication record in the areas of dramaturgy, pedagogy and aspects of theatre production and reception.

Her other roles have included Trustee at Circomedia Bristol, Reviews Editor for the Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, and she was recently elected as the Education Representative on the Dramaturgs' Network's Executive Committee.

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Books

The Contemporary Ensemble: Interviews with Theatre-Makers, Routledge, due in 2013.

Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21st Century, Palgrave, due in 2013.

Chapters in Books:

'Kneehigh' in Liz Tomlin (ed) British Theatre Companies: From Fringe to Mainstream, Methuen, contracted, to be submitted in 2013.

'Michael Boyd' in John Britton (ed) Encountering Ensemble, Methuen, submitted, due in 2013.

'Towards Performed Dramaturgy' in Katalin Trencsenyi and Bernadette Cochrane (eds) New Dramaturgy: International Perspectives, Methuen, submitted, due in 2013.

'Shared Utopias? Alan Lyddiard, Lev Dodin and the Northern Stage Ensemble' in
Jonathan Pitches (ed) Russians in Britain: British Theatre and the Russian Tradition of Actor Training, Routledge, 2012.

'On the Wrestling School' in Brown, Mark (ed) Howard Barker Interviews 1980-2010: Conversations in Catastrophe, Intellect, 2011.

'Believe it or Not? Suspension of Disbelief and Emotional Responses to Fiction' in Meyer-Dinkgrafe, D (ed): Consciousness, Theatre, Literature and the Arts, CSP, 2006.

'Staging Theatricalised Reality: Yugoslav Metatheatre and its Political Significance' in
Haas, B (ed), Macht Performanz, Performativität, Polittheater seit 1990. Würzburg, 2005.

Refereed Academic Articles:

'Sarah Kane's Illyria', Contemporary Theatre Review 'On South", submitted, due in 2013

'The Need to Keep Moving: Remarks on the Place of a Dramaturg in 21st Century England' – Performance Research: 'On Dramaturgy', 14 (3), pp. 43-49, Taylor Francis Ltd, 2009, pp. 45-51.

'The Alchemy of Power and Freedom – A Contextualisation of Slobodan Šnajder's Hrvatski Faust (The Croatian Faust)' – Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 19 (4), 2009, pp. 428-47.

'Translating the City: A Community Theatre Version of Wenders' Wings of Desire in Newcastle upon Tyne' – Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, Vol. 1 (1), 2007, pp. 57-70.

Non-Refereed Academic Articles:

'Howard Barker Day' & 'Interview with Howard Barker', Western European Stages, Volume 22, Number 2/3, Fall 2010, pp 63-66 & 67-70.

'A Reflection on Internal' – for Contemporary Theatre Review Backpages, 20 (1), 2010, pp. 249-251.

'Interview with Emma Rice' – Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, 3 (1), 2010, pp. 89-98.

Research Funding

AHRC Fellowship 'Theatre-Making: Redefining 'Playwriting' and 'Writing for Performance' in the 21st Century' - obtained 2012

Faculty of Humanities funding for Theatre Criticism Symposium, 2011

British Academy Travel Grant, 2005

Non-Academic Publications

Books:

Serbian Dictionary & Phrasebook (with Nick Awde), Hippocrene Books Inc., New York, 2004

Beginners' Serbo-Croatian, Hippocrene Books Inc., New York, 2002

Articles:

'Moskva', TFT: Teatar Film Televizija, Sluzbeni glasnik, Beograd, Br 7, Leto 2010, ISSN 1821-0120, pp 104-111.

'Edinburg 2009: Iz krajnosti u krajnost ideje prosvetiteljstva', TFT: Teatar Film Televizija, Sluzbeni glasnik, Beograd, Br 5/12/2009, ISSN1821-0120, pp 18-23.

'Kako pokrenuti kritičara: Edinburg 2008 - Eksperimenti u političkom teatru', TFT: Teatar Film Televizija, Sluzbeni glasnik, Beograd, Br 1/12/2008, ISSN 1821-0120, pp 66-69.

'The Canterbury Tales Study Day: Learning and Teaching Methodology at the CAPITAL Centre', English Subject Centre Newsletter Issue 10, June 2006, pp 39-40 (also available at the Higher Education Academy).

'From Dramaturg to Chocolatier: The Working Process on Margaret Wilkinson's new play Kaput!' – on dramforum.com, 2005.

Foreword to Kaput! by Margaret Wilkinson, New Writing North, 2004.

Introduction to Huddersfield by Uglješa Šajtinac, in a version by Chris Thorpe, from a translation by Duška Radosavljević, Oberon Books, 2004.

'Lindzi Kemp – Jedna karijera, SCENA, godina XXXIX, br 1-2, 2003, pp 62-67, also available here: www.pozorje.org.rs

Numerous reviews and articles in The Stage Newspaper since 1998.

Practice as Research:

The Gift of Pygmalion - a music theatre piece with story by Duška Radosavljević, directed by George Rodosthenous, performed in April 2012 in Munich, Germany

Othello's Revenge - a music theatre adaptation of Shakespeare's play, with dramaturgy by Duška Radosavljević, directed by George Rodosthenous, with music by Demetris Zavros, performed in April 2011 in Munich, Germany

Der Fall Des Ikarus – a music-theatre piece with story by Duška Radosavljević, directed by George Rodosthenous and music by Demetris Zavros, performed in October 2009, Koeln, Germany

The Suicide Bride - an original play for three voices (currently in development)

The Symposium - a music theatre adaptation of Plato's text by Duška Radosavljević; dir. George Rodosthenous, Leeds, 2007

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Duska convenes and teaches on MA Theatre Directing, and MA Theatre Dramaturgy. Duska is very keen to develop an understanding of these disciplines that is suitable for the contemporary British theatre-making context, while at the same time enabling students to acquire key skills which will be useful to them in other cultural contexts too. She therefore maintains a practical component to these course which involves an industrial placement and/or work on a final year production.
Duska is currently developing an MA in Arts Criticism with colleagues from Film Studies.
On the undergraduate level, Duska convenes and teaches:

1. DR658 Explorations in Theatre Practice, and
2. DR619 Playwriting (as a studio-based module).

She has also convened DR548/601 Performance the Seminar (which involves theatre reviewing), DR317 Texts for Theatre, DR622 Cultural Policies and DR504 British Theatre 1945-2005. All of these courses develop key skills and a knowledge-base that feeds into the study of Dramaturgy and Directing at MA level.

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Duska has just completed a research project in ensemble theatre and theatre-making which culminates in two book publications: The Contemporary Ensemble (Routledge, 2013) and Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21st Century (Palgrave, 2013).

Duska's PhD thesis (completed in 2002) was entitled 'Metatheatre as a Political Tool in Yugoslav Drama of the 1980s and 1990s' and it dealt with the topics of dramaturgy, theatre translation, history, politics and modes of spectatorship. This work resulted in several published articles and has inspired some of the subsequent research (e.g. an article on Sarah Kane's representation of the Balkans in Blasted, forthcoming in CTR, 2013).

Combined with her professional experience of working as the Dramaturg at Northern Stage, and a theatre critic for The Stage Newspaper, this area of interest evolved into a research focus on theatre translation and adaptation (e.g. 'Translating the City', Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance).

More recently, Duska has refocused her energies on the issue of the 'ensemble way of working' mostly as a means of conceptualizing her experience of working with the RSC and Northern Stage ensembles.

Her practice-as-research projects, developed with University of Leeds-based Altitude North, elaborate this enquiry further.

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Duska has co-supervised with Oliver Double a PhD thesis on stand-up comedy and punk, with Robert Shaughnessy a PhD on Martin McDonagh and with Robert Shaughnessy and Nicki Shaughnessy a PhD on mental distress in contemporary British theatre.

She has also supervised an exchange PhD student from Romania working on censorship in Romania and a PhD student from Switzerland working on Yugoslav versions of Hamlet.
Duska welcomes proposals on the topics of dramaturgy, adaptation, theatre criticism, Edinburgh Festival, performance-making, theatre-making, interactivity, contemporary British, European and the theatre of the Balkans.

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