Performance Network

Nicholas Ridout (Reader in Theatre and Performance Studies, Queen Mary University of London)

Professor Steven Connor (Grace 2 Professor of English, University of Cambridge)

Chair: Dr Zoë Svendsen (Director, Dramaturg and Lecturer in Drama, University of Cambridge)

Ridout, thinking about performance as a way of thinking about work, and inspired by a 1711 article in The Spectator (‘The Trunkmaker’, 235) will share some thoughts about slavery and spectatorship. He is the author of Passionate Amateurs: Theatre, Communism and Love (University of Michigan Press, 2013), Stage Fright, Animals and Other Theatrical Problems (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Theatre & Ethics (Palgrave 2009), and co-editor, with Joe Kelleher, of Contemporary Theatres in Europe (Routledge, 2006) and co-author, with Joe Kelleher and members of the company, of The Theatre of Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio (Routledge, 2007). 

 Professor Connor is a writer, critic and broadcaster, who has published books on Dickens, Beckett, Joyce and postmodernism, as well as on topics such as ventriloquism, skin, flies, and air. His most recent books are Paraphernalia: The Curious Lives of Magical Things (2011) and A Philosophy of Sport (2011). His website at www.stevenconnor.comincludes lectures, broadcasts, unpublished work and work in progress. 

As a dramaturg Zoë has most recently worked with Joe Hill-Gibbons on Edward II at the National Theatre, and The Changeling  at the Young Vic (Maria: revived in main house, 2012) as well as with Polly Findlay on Arden of Faversham(RSC - forthcoming). Directing projects with her company METIS, include 3rd Ring Out (UK tour; TippingPoint Award) and World Factory (NT Studio; New Wolsey Theatre; Cambridge Junction). She is also a research fellow at Birkbeck’s Centre for Contemporary Theatre.www.metisarts.co.uk

Open to all.  No registration required