• Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies (Theatre, Film and Television Studies)

telephone: 01413301962
email: Simon.Murray@glasgow.ac.uk

Office hours: Monday 1-3pm

Research Interests

Simon’s research interests are interdisciplinary and constantly engage with a sociological and cultural studies past and a theatre/performance present. A preoccupation with political and social contexts frames and drives all his interests, regardless of the particular nature of the project in question. His research and writing have attempted to combine close readings of theatre forms, historiography and locating these practices as cultural production. His present research interests include the writings of WG Sebald, their relationship to contemporary performance practices, and the ‘structures of feeling’ (Raymond Williams) which frame and contextualise Sebald’s work. He is currently working on ‘lightness’ and ‘weight’ as training, compositional and relational metaphors in contemporary theatre and performance.

Biography

Simon joined Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow in September 2008 having moved from Dartington College of Arts in Devon where he was Director of Theatre.

In recent years Simon’s research been focussed on the practices and histories of ‘physical theatres’. From these interests and experiences as performer, director, teacher and researcher he wrote Jacques Lecoq (Routledge 2003), the first full length study on the work of the influential French teacher of acting, mime, movement and contemporary theatre who died in 1999. In 2007, jointly as author/editor with John Keefe he published Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction and Physical Theatres: A Critical Reader (Routledge 2007). These companion volumes explored and analysed the territories of contemporary Western physical theatres, placing current preoccupations with the body in performance in a wider historical and cultural context.

Simon welcomes applications from MPhil and PhD students wishing to undertake research into contemporary performance practice, performer/actor training, physical theatres, devised performance, interdisciplinary and cross art form practices and cultural materialist perspectives on late 20th/21st century theatre making.

Current students:

• Kieran Hurley:  'Training for Action and Disobedience: the performing body as an agent for change'
• Markee Rambo-Hood:  'The Relationship between Music and Theatre in the work of Robert Wilson'
• Laura Cameron-Lewis:  'Compositional Practices for Pervasive Performance'
• Tara Beall: ‘From Transport to Travel: Contemporary Performance and Visitor Agency in a 21st Century Museum of Transport’ (AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award)
• Lucy Amsden: ‘The pedagogies of Philippe Gaulier and the position of the clown in actor training’
• Mark Westbrook: ‘Character and characterisation in models of actor training’

External Responsibilities

• Co-convenor (with Jonathan Pitches and David Shirley) of the Theatre & Performance Research Association (TaPRA) working group on 20th/21st Century Performer Training
• Co-founder and Co-editor (with Professor Jonathan Pitches of the University of Leeds) of the journal 'Theatre, Dance and Performance Training: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal'.  Simon would welcome any enquiries about the journal and especially from people interesting in making contributions. The journal has its editorial base jointly at the universities of Glasgow and Leeds
• External Examiner for the Combined BA (Hons) in Drama at the University of Sussex and the BA (Hons) in Contemporary Theatre and Performance at Manchester Metropolitan University.