My work involves writing and performance, political engagement, academic research and teaching. I am currently Professor of Theatre at King’s College London and Director of the Performance Foundation where I curate Performance Law.
I am the author of a number of books including Theatre & Everyday Life (1993), Theatre, Intimacy & Engagement (2008), Theatre in the Expanded Field (2014), Theatre & Law (2016) and The Dark Theatre (2020). I am the editor of The Fact of Blackness (1997), Architecturally Speaking (2000), On Animals (2000) and On Civility (2013). In the 1980s I worked at Rotherhithe Theatre Workshop, a neighbourhood performance project in the Docklands area of South East London. In the 1990s I was a freelance writer living in Barcelona and Director of the Talks programme at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. In 1997 I was appointed the first Professor of Theatre at Roehampton University and then in 2007 to the first Chair of Theatre at King’s College London.
I have worked closely with theatre companies such as Het Werkteater (Amsterdam), Forced Entertainment (Sheffield), Forster & Heighes (London), Goat Island (Chicago), Societas Raffaello Sanzio (Cesena), and the artist/activists Platform (where something is at stake). I write for and present my essays on BBC Radio 4 including Plato’s Cave (2012), Dreadful Trade: On Shakespeare’s Cliff (2014) and Soul Estuary: The Mouth of the River (2016). I am currently researching and writing on theatre and ecology (especially phyto-performance and the decolonisation of plants), affective activism and what I call ‘Cultural Cruelty’, and performance archaeologies of the King’s College London site on Strand. I am the Convenor of the new Theatre, Performance & Critical Culture MA programme at King’s College London and welcome informed approaches for PhD study in my specific areas of research interest.
The work found on these pages includes writing and performance projects drawn from across this experience between 1981 and the present. I would be happy to hear from you or answer any questions via the contact page.