Graduate Student, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics
Thesis Title: ‘Floating Identities: Self-determination, Self-Expression and Self-knowledge in the work of Timberlake Wertenbaker’ (working title)
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Dr Frances Babbage
Dr Steve Nicholson |
About
My PhD thesis (due to be completed during 2010) is a study of the contemporary playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker. It is based on both her published plays and on my extensive work with her archive at the British Library. This resource has enabled me to compare Wertenbaker’s unpublished and unfinished plays with those for which she is better known, and thus to build up a picture of her work and career as a developing process. I address ideas of identity formation and resistance to the imposition of identity, both as a theme across Wertenbaker’s creative work and as a feature of her own life.
As a part-time tutor at the University of Sheffield I have taught on a range of theatircal topics, including Wertenbaker, Caryl Churchill, Athol Fugard, Samuel Beckett, Brecht and Chekhov.
My practice as a director includes Wertenbaker's 'The Love of the Nightingale', Armand Gatti's 'The Stork' and Sharman Macdonald's 'After Juliet', as well as a number of devised projects. I have a particular committment to fascilitating theatrical participation amongst young people and have established my own Sheffield-based company for these purposes.
