SUMMARY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
I come to the table with over ten years’ teaching experience across all ages and experience levels. My background as a theatre performer, director, and facilitator informs my entire pedagogy, even in seminar or theory-based class settings. I believe in the importance of incorporating digital technology and current events into teaching, in the importance of revision, rehearsal, and process, and in second chances. I strive to make my pedagogy intersectional, inclusive, and historically aware.
INVITED LECTURES & GUEST SEMINARS
- ‘Teaching Texts That Make Us Angry’ (Spring 2023)
- For: Lunchtime Lecture Series (Adelphi University)
- Measure for Measure (Winter 2021)
- For: Shakespeare in Conversation (West Texas A&M University)
- ‘Early Modern Theatre Spaces and Practices’
- ‘Modern Adaptations of King Lear and As You Like It‘
- ‘Shakespeare Today’ (Spring 2019)
- For: Rethinking Shakespeare (BA English, University of Exeter)
- ‘”Who will believe thee?” Performing Gendered Violence in the Twenty-First Century’ (Fall 2018)
- For: Topics in Cultural Affairs: Cultural Criticism (BA Journalism, Emerson College)
- ‘#1Lear and Writing Book Reviews with Social Media’ (Winter 2017)
- For: Topics in Cultural Affairs: Cultural Criticism (BA Journalism, Emerson College)
- ‘Developing a Methodology’ (Spring 2016)
- For: Research Project Development (MA Drama, Uni. of Exeter)
- ‘Reading Adaptation: The Changeling at the National Theatre, 1988’ (Fall 2014)
- For: Cultural Adaptation (MA Drama, Uni. of Exeter)
PERFORMANCE WORKSHOPS
‘Dramaturgy and Intimacy: Adapting The Birth of Merlin‘ (Spring 2023)
- For Mary Baldwin University: MLitt/MFA Shakespeare and Performance students
‘Intervening in Misogynist Dramaturgies: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure‘ (Spring 2023)
- For Boston Conservatory at Berklee Drama students and staff
‘Shakespeare, Feminism, and Physical Theatre in Practice: Measure (Still) for Measure‘ (Winter 2018)
- For Dalhousie Uni. BA Drama and English students
‘Staging Shakespeare Beyond the Globe’ (Fall 2015)
- For Uni. of Exeter MA Staging Shakespeare students
Staging Workshops: Tamburlaine and The Busie Bodie (Winter/Spring 2015)
- For Uni. of Exeter BA English Lit students (as part of Theatrical Cultures: Renaissance to Restoration)
PAST H.E. TEACHING
Between 2020 and 2024, I was a Lecturer in Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama and Literature at the University of Essex. During that time, I:
- designed the third-year module REPRESENTING WOMEN ON SEVENTEETH-CENTURY ENGLISH STAGES from scratch. This module focused on practice-as-research and gave students a high level of autonomy over their secondary reading and assessment design;
- re-developed the first-year module SHAKESPEARE ACROSS MEDIA to better support students from across the department’s provision (including Literature, Film, Theatre, Creative Writing, and Journalism);
- re-designed the INTRODUCTION TO THEATRE STUDIES to incorporate core voice and movement technical skills, as well as a broader range of voices and perspectives (e.g., teaching Antigone in Ferguson alongside Sophocles’ Antigone);
- re-designed the second-year PERFORMING SHAKESPEARE module to focus on one play per year, to achieve strong depth of understanding alongside a breadth of critical and creative perspectives;
- contributed to team-teaching on ORIGINS AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF LITERATURE AND DRAMA (first-year literature survey), THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE MAKERS (second-year drama survey), LAW AND LITERATURE (third-year interdisciplinary option), INDEPENDENT RESEARCH PROJECT and INDEPENDENT PRACTICAL PROJECT (third-year dissertation modules), and RESEARCH METHODS (MA module).
For the 2019-20 academic year, I worked as a Teaching Associate in Theatre at Bristol University contributing to team teaching on the following modules:
INTRODUCTION TO PERFORMANCE STUDIES
- 1st-year discussion-based
INTRODUCTION TO PERFORMANCE PRACTICES
- 1st-year studio-based
- Created and delivered workshops on Working with Body
CHOREOGRAPHY
- 2nd-year studio-based
- Unit Coordinator
PERFORMANCE HISTORIES
- 2nd-year discussion-based
CONTEMPORARY BRITISH THEATRE
- 3rd-year discussion-based
STAGING THE TEXT
- 1st-year studio-based
POLITICS OF PERFORMANCE
- 2nd-year discussion-based
INDEPENDENT STUDY
- supervision of 3rd-year final projects
In the 2018-19 academic year, I provided seminar and studio teaching for 3 modules as an Associate Lecturer in Drama at Exeter University:
PRACTITIONERS IN CONTEXT
- 1st-year Drama theory
- Twentieth-century theatre history module, organised around key practitioners and movements, from the Modernist movements of the late 19th/early 20th centuries to Joan Littlewood to Rimini Protokoll.
RESEARCH & PERFORMANCE
- 1st-year Drama studio
- Devising module, tailored to the tutor’s particular research interests.
- For 2019, my group focused on storytelling and physical theatre, with an emphasis on Viewpoints.
PERFORMANCE & INTERPRETATION
- 2nd-year Drama theory
- Covered cultural materialism, feminism, postcolonialism, and queer theory as applicable in performance analysis
I will also be offering three Guest Lectures in the English Department for the first-year module Rethinking Shakespeare.
I served as a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant (PTA) in Drama and English at Exeter University from 2013-2016. During that time, I taught:
THE SHAKESPEAREAN SCENE IN ACTION
- MA-level Drama studio
- Supervised students’ development of solo and group performances
PERFORMANCE & INTERPRETATION
- 2nd-year Drama theory
- Covered cultural materialism, feminism, postcolonialism, and queer theory as applicable in performance analysis
PRETEXTS & CONTEXTS OF DRAMA
- 1st-year Drama theory
- Covered semiotics, phenomenology, reader-response theory, cultural materialism, queer theory, postcolonialism, and feminism
CULTURAL ADAPTATION
- MA-level Drama theory
- Assisted students in developing research questions for their final papers
DESIRE & POWER IN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE
- 2nd-year English Literature
- Covered variety of Renaissance writers, including Marlowe, Webster, Nashe, Donne, Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare
THEATRICAL CULTURES: RENAISSANCE TO RESTORATION
- 2nd-year English Literature
- Shadowed convenor Pascale Aebischer on lectures and seminars
- Delivered seminar on The Changeling and workshops in early modern staging and theatre practice using scenes from Tamburlaine and The Busie Bodie
BEYOND H.E.
GUEST ARTIST – Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP) (Dec 2018)
- Facilitated theatre and storytelling workshops involving oral history from the Second World War for a group of ARSP volunteers from Germany, Poland, and Ukraine.
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE – Nichols School (Jan – May 2017)
- Worked with a group of seven high school seniors (ages 17-18) over a period of five months as part of the Measure (Still) for Measure project
LONG-TERM SUBSTITUTE – Buffalo Academy of the Sacred Heart (Jan – March 2017)
- Took on two sections of AP English Language & Composition at short notice when a full-time faculty member was injured
- Covered topics in American Literature, including the Harlem Renaissance, The Great Gatsby, and modernist poetry
ACTING COACH – Stagecoach Theatre School (Sept 2015-July 2016)
- Worked with students ages 7 to 17 as part of a weekend stage school in Bristol, Yate, and Portishead
- Prepared students for Rock School Performing Arts exams
- Directed Thoroughly Modern Millie
THEATRE DIRECTOR & ARTS SUPERVISOR – Camp Interlaken, JCC (summers 2010-2012)
- Taught improv, technical theatre, singing, and acting to campers ages 7 to 17
- Directed two musicals per summer
- Supported arts staff in other areas and conducted performance reviews
