Research and Development in British Theatre

Tom Cantrell is a Professor of Theatre and Head of the School of Arts and Creative Technologies at the University of York, UK. He has published widely on acting processes, including Acting in Documentary Theatre (Palgrave 2013), Acting in British Television (Palgrave 2017) and Exploring Television Acting (Bloomsbury 2018), co-written with Christopher Hogg. Katherine Graham is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York, UK, where her research focuses on the agency of materials in performance. She has also worked extensively as a lighting designer for theatre and dance and has published work about light in Theatre and Performance Design Journal, Studies in Theatre and Performance, and Contemporary Theatre Review. She is co-editor, with Kelli Zezulka and Scott Palmer, of Contemporary Performance Lighting: Experience, Creativity, Meaning (Bloomsbury 2023). Mark Love-Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York, UK. He has research interests in devised and physical theatre, community theatre, and the interplay of writing, directing and devising. His latest publication is the Routledge Performance Practitioners book on Frantic Assembly, co-written with Professor Mark Evans. Karen Quigley is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York, UK. Her first monograph, Performing the Unstageable: Success, Imagination, Failure was published by Bloomsbury in 2020. She has also published research on a range of subjects including site-specific performance, solo spectatorship, embodied voice, British television comedy and theatre-fiction.

Foreword Jenny Sealey

Introduction
1. Warped virtuosity and wobbly visuals: skills-learning in R&D: Karen Quigley
2. Interview with Selina Thompson
3. R&D in public: Scratch at Battersea Arts Centre: Mark Love-Smith
4. Interview with Gilly Roche
5. R&D at the National Theatre Studio: London Road: Tom Cantrell
6. Interview with Lillian Henley
7. Percolating and plummeting: Artist perspectives on R&D: Deborah Pearson
8. Interview with Rosemary Jenkinson
9. Questions, materiality, and negotiation: the role of the designer in R&D: Katherine Graham
10. Interview with Rosie Elnile
11. Developing a dramaturgical praxis through repetitive R&D: Rebecca Benzie, Harry Kingscott, and Nora J. Williams
12. Interview with Alex Kelly and Rachael Walton
13. Movement direction as R&D: Ayse Tashkiran
14. Interview with Georgina Lamb
Afterword: Duška Radosavljevic