My research interest in various aspects of contemporary theatre and performance is fuelled by my ongoing work as a journalistic theatre critic. I am interested in theatre as a live event and in the connections between theatre/performance and its cultural and creative contexts. I teach theatre criticism as a means to bring students closer to the theatre industries and the cultural life of London, to help them develop a sense of their own aesthetic, and to help them articulate their analyses in writing.

I developed an interest in theories of globalisation while working on my doctoral thesis about the stage works of the Québec director Robert Lepage. Studying the ways in which the processes of globalisation affect creative practices is an emergent and exciting field, which calls on scholars to draw together theoretical materials from philosophy, cultural studies, sociology, economics, and tourism studies, amongst other areas of inquiry. My approach is always grounded in the material realities of cultural production, and I have an ongoing interest in charting the ways in which touring, co-production, and multi-national funding is altering Lepage’s (and other artists’) approach to their work. I am currently writing a volume about Lepage’s work for Manchester University Press.

Another aspect of my approach to Lepage’s work treats the complex relationship between his creativity and his home culture, the stateless nation of Québec. Studying this aspect of Lepage’s work has fuelled a larger interest, in my part, on the relationship between performance and nation, which in turn led to an ongoing research project on the Eurovision Song Contest. During a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Trinity College, Dublin, I researched the history and cultural politics of the Contest, and worked with two colleagues on study of Irish Eurovision fandom. I am currently working with colleagues to establish a network of Eurovision research, with a particular focus on the ways in which Eurovision makes meanings in Eastern and Central Europe. I lived in Dublin, Ireland from 1997-2007, working as a theatre critic and as co-founder and editor in chief of Irish Theatre Magazine. I presently review theatre in London for Variety (US).

July 2008