My first academic appointment was Research Fellow in Performing Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University which I held from 1997-2006. During this time I was also founder member and associate director of the Open Performance Centre in Sheffield, where I co-founded  the theatre company, Point Blank, and directed a number of schools and community performance projects across South Yorkshire.

I was the founder member and co-artistic director of Point Blank Theatre from  2000-2009. In this time I wrote and directed Dead Causes, Operation Wonderland and  Roses & Morphine, wrote, directed and performed in Nothing to Declare, and  acted as producer and dramaturgical advisor for An Evening with Psychosis. All productions toured nationally, and further details can be found at www.pointblank.org.uk in the past productions archive. Selected performance texts and critical articles on the company’s work are published in Point Blank (Intellect, 2007).

My research is in the area of contemporary theatre and performance, political and cultural theory, performance and devising techniques and new writing for theatre.

Ihave a forthcoming monograph in press with Manchester University Press entitled, Acts and Apparitions: Discourses on the Real in Performance Practice and Theory 1990-2010. This project has been awarded a research grant by the AHRC, and  is due for publication in 2013. I am also currently an associate editor on the journal Performing Ethos.

My practical research is undertaken in association with artistic collaborative Geiger Counter, and current theatre projects include The Pool Game  and Landfill. The Pool Game has been funded by the Arts Council to move into a final phase of development and will be performed in Sheffield, Leeds and London this June.

Research interests

• Contemporary performance in its cultural and political context
• Performance techniques and devising strategies in contemporary performance and new writing
• 20th and 21st century political and critical theory and philosophy

Research groups

Political Performances Working Group – International Federation of Theatre Research
Avant Garde Working Group – American Society for Theatre Research
Performance and Philosophy Working Group – Performance Studies International

I welcome informal enquiries from any potential applicants with an interest in undertaking practice-based research or doctorates by thesis within my areas of specialism. I am currently supervising postgraduate students in the areas of:

• Contemporary political adaptations of Greek mythology
• The Guided Tour in the Under-Celebrated Urban Space
• Poststructuralist Dramaturgies

My research is in the area of contemporary theatre and performance, political and cultural theory, performance and devising techniques and new writing for theatre.

I am currently working on a monograph for Manchester University Press entitled, Acts and Apparitions: Discourses of the Real in Performance Practice and Theory 1990-2010. This project has been awarded a research grant by the AHRC, and  is due for publication in 2012. I am also currently an associate editor on the journal Performing Ethos.

My practical research is undertaken in association with artistic collaborative Geiger Counter, and current projects include The Pool Game  and  Landfill.

Research interests

• Contemporary performance in its cultural and political context
• Performance techniques and devising strategies in contemporary performance and new writing
• 20th and 21st century political and critical theory and  philosophy

Research groups

Political Performances Working Group – International Federation of Theatre Research
Avant Garde Working Group – American Society for Theatre Research
Performance and Philosophy Working Group – Performance Studies International

Books:

• 'Point Blank: Nothing to Declare, Operation Wonderland, Roses & Morphine' (Bristol: Intellect, 2007).

Articles/Chapters in books:

• 'A 'Political Suspension of the Ethical': To be Straight with You (2007) and An Evening with Psychosis (2009)' Performing Ethos 1:2 (2010)
• ‘Beyond Representation: Re-membering the ‘Ghosts’ of Recent History in Contemporary Performance’ in Critical Stages vol 2 (2010) [www.criticalstages.org/criticalstages2/18]
• 'And their stories fell apart even as I was telling them: Poststructuralist Performance and the no-longer-dramatic playtext' in Performance Research, vol 14 (1) (2009)
• 'Beyond Cynicism: Contemporary Performance and the Sceptical Imperative' in Contemporary Theatre Review,  vol 18 (3) (2008)
• 'A New Tremendous Aristocracy: Tragedy and the Meta-tragic in Barker's Theatre of Catastrophe' in Theatre of Catastrophe, ed. Karoline Gritzner and David Ian Rabey (London: Oberon, 2006) p109-123.
• 'Innocent Tourists? Neo-Colonialist Narratives in Contemporary Performance' in Contemporary Theatre Review on Globalization and Theatre, ed. Dan Rebellato and Jen Harvie (Vol 16, 1, 2006) p23-30.
• 'English theatre in the 1990s and beyond' in Cambridge History of British Theatre – Volume 3 ed. Baz Kershaw (London: Cambridge University Press, 2004) pp 494 - 508.
• 'The Politics of Catastrophe' in Modern Drama vol XLIII, no 1, (2000) pp.66-77.
• 'Transgressing Boundaries: Postmodern Performance and the Tourist Trap' in TDR 162, (1999) pp.136-149.