Dr Nicholas Ridout, BA (Cambridge), PhD (London)
Reader in Theatre and Performance Studies

email: n.p.ridout@qmul.ac.uk

Nicholas Ridout's work is concerned primarily with a political understanding of the theatrical event as an instance of cultural production, an affective experience and a mode of social organisation. The main focus of this work is the theatre of modern capitalism, in which people spend their leisure time sitting in the dark watching other people working in the light. He also writes about contemporary experimental theatre and performance, with a particular emphasis on work being made in Europe. His latest book, Passionate Amateurs: Theatre, Communism and Love, will be published in 2013.

Research interests:

histories and theories of theatre and affect
intersections between theatre and philosophy
opera and musical performance
Marxist histories and theories of culture
spectatorship and publics

Postgraduate supervision:

Nicholas would welcome enquiries from potential doctoral students interested in any of the areas of his research.

He has recently supervised the following successful PhD projects:

Léonore Easton, ‘Livegraphy Performance Art, Language and the Multiplicity of Sense’ (2010)
Eirini Kartsaki, ‘Repeat Repeat: Returns of Performance’ (2010)
Louise Owen, ‘Performing “Risk”: Neoliberalization and Contemporary Performance’, co-supervised with Paul Heritage (2010)
Sarah Whitfield, ‘Kurt Weill: The “Composer as Dramatist” in American Musical Theatre Production’ (2010)
Theron Schmidt, ‘The Politics of Theatricality: Community and Representation in Contemporary Art and Performance’ (2011)
Tiffany Watt-Smith, ‘Flinching: Self-Experimentation and Theatricality, 1872-1918’ (2011)
Francesco Ceraolo, ‘The Aesthetics of the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk from Appia to Postdramatic Theatre’ (2012)
Megan Macdonald, ‘Performance Art, Liturgy and the Performance of Belief’, co-supervised with Paul Heritage (2012)

Publications:

Books:

Passionate Amateurs: Theatre, Communism and Love (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, forthcoming)

with J. Jones, Oman, Culture and Diplomacy (Edinburgh University Press, 2010)

Theatre and Ethics (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009)

with R. Castellucci, J. Kelleher, C. Castellucci, & C. Guidi, The Theatre of Societas Raffaello Sanzio (London: Routledge, 2007)

with J. Kelleher, eds, Contemporary Theatres in Europe: A Critical Companion (London: Routledge, 2006)

Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical Problems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Selected Chapters and Articles:

‘On the Work of Things: Musical Production, Theatrical Labor and the "General Intellect"', Theatre Journal, 64 (2012), 389-408

‘Opera and the Technologies of Theatrical Production’, in The Cambridge Companion to Opera Studies, ed. N. Till (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)

‘Mis-spectatorship, or, “redistributing the sensible”', in Archaeologies of Presence, ed. G. Giannachi, N. Kaye & M. Shanks (Routledge, 2012)

‘Ice, or a Collective History of the History of our Collectivity in the Theatre’, in Theater Historiography, ed. H. Bial & S. Magelssen (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010)

‘Di tre tipi di appartanenza’, in B.Motion Spazio di Riflessione fuori e dentro le arti performative, ed. V. Gravano, E. Pitozzi and A. Sacchi (Milan: Costa & Nolan, 2008)

‘Performance and Democracy’, in The Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies, ed. T. C. Davis (Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 11-22

'Performance in the Service Economy’, in Double Agent, ed. C. Bishop and M. Sladen (London: ICA, 2008)

‘Welcome to the Vibratorium’, Senses and Society, 3 (2008), 221-31

‘The Worst Sort of Places’, Theater, 37 (2007), 6-15

‘Make-believe: Societas Raffaello Sanzio do theatre’, in Contemporary Theatres in Europe, ed. N. Ridout and J. Kelleher (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 175-87

‘Tragedy at Home: Societas Raffaello Sanzio at Laban’, PAJ: Performance Arts Journal, 81 (2005), 83-92

with J. Jones, ‘Democratic Development in Oman’, Middle East Journal, 59 (2005), 376-392

‘Animal Labour in the Theatrical Economy’, Theatre Research International, 29 (2004), 57-65

‘Two Parrots and an Answering Machine: Some Problems with Knowledge and Memory’, Performance Research 7.4: On Archives (2002), 42-47

‘Seeing Undoing’ translated (by Dominique Hollier) as ‘Voir Défaire’, in To Carthage Then I Came, ed. R. Castellucci (Arles, Actes Sud, 2002), pp. 51-71

Undergraduate teaching:

In the current academic year, Nicholas contributes to undergraduate teaching on:

Dr Nicholas Ridout, BA (Cambridge), PhD (London) Reader in Theatre and Performance Studies