UNSW Sydney PhD Scholarship
Theatre and Performance at UNSW Sydney invites Expressions of Interest for a UNSW Scientia PhD Scholarship project on “Theatre of the Real,” named after Carol Martin’s groundbreaking work on theatre about real events in her book of the same title. The joint supervisors are Dr Meg Mumford and Dr Caroline Wake; the secondary supervisor is Dr Theron Schmidt.
This project explores the politics of participation and representation in “theatre of the real,” an increasingly prominent form of performance internationally. Such theatre explicitly cites or summons the world outside the theatre. It includes, for example, autobiographical, community-based, documentary, participatory, relational, re-enactment, testimonial and participatory practices. Often involving vulnerable or marginalised people, theatre of the real casts these participants as “everyday experts” with valuable knowledge derived from their lived experience. This project investigates what happens when such experts meet theatre professionals and spectators. To this end it explores the complex politics and ethics that surround the process of representing and empowering real people through theatre.
Or, if you are at the PSi conference this coming week, then you can find and talk to Caroline Wake and Theron Schmidt there.