Theron Schmidt

My research and publication areas include contemporary theatre and performance; histories of theatricality and spectatorship; community, identity, and participation; and the political and interventionist potential of theatre and performance. I’m particularly interested in the ways that certain problems of speech and gesture in the political realm can be considered as essentially theatrical problems – problems for theatre, but also ideas that theatricality makes problems of – such as problems of representation or of authenticity.           

Recent research has focused on the practice of artists such as Back to Back Theatre, Tim Crouch, Richard Maxwell, Rabih Mroué, Walid Raad, Rimini Protokoll, and Christoph Schlingensief. I have published articles in Contemporary Theatre Review, Law Text Culture, and Performance Research. I am an Assistant Editor for Contemporary Theatre Review and am on the editorial boards for Performance Research and the International Journal of Screendance.  I am also a co-convener of the London Theatre Seminar and the international Performance Philosophy network.

In addition to my formal academic research, I have written widely about live art and performance for a variety of publications, including magazines and artist books. I’m also interested in innovative critical writing projects that foster interaction between artists, scholars, and publics. These have included magazine and online publications in Dance Theatre Journal, RealTime, Total Theatre, and Writing from Live Art; contributing essays to the Barbican catalogue for the 2011 SPILL Festival of Performance and a DVD of films by Goat Island and Lucy Cash; facilitating projects such as SPILL Stings and a series of symposia at the Chelsea Theatre (London); and running Open Space events in a variety of contexts.          

I also make performance as a solo and collaborative artist.

Contemporary performance; interventionist art; Live Art; theatre and the political; participation and spectatorship; performance writing; performance philosophy.