Lucie Sutherland
Lecturer in Drama and Performance, Faculty of Arts
Contact
Expertise Summary
BA and MA (Warwick), PhD (London)
Areas of expertise - drama and contexts for performance; late nineteenth century to the present day.
UG Modules taught First year - Introduction to Drama; Second year - Analysing Performance; Final year - Twentieth-Century Plays, Shakespeare: Performance in Context.
PG modules taught I contribute to the team taught MA, Issues in Theatre Research.
Research Summary
My work is focused upon the relationship between professional infrastructure and creativity within the theatre industry from the late nineteenth-century to the present day.
I am currently conducting research that relates to English, commercial theatre in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. Using previously neglected archive material, I am examining the transition from a theatrical marketplace characterised by informal sources of funding, to one dominated by limited liability production companies, that came to prominence during the first part of the twentieth century, and are fundamental to how mainstream theatre functions today.
Current work includes an article on the profit achieved during the first run of Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest', and a critical biography of actor-manager George Alexander, focusing upon his work as an actor-manager between 1890 and 1918. This study will contribute to a fuller understanding of the complex interplay between fiscal and aesthetic aims at work in commercial theatre during the period.
Having been awarded a grant in June 2010 by Nottngham's Centre fror Advanced Studies, to examine the archive for New Perspectives Theatre Company, I am also preparing an article for publication examining the changing function of touring theatre within rural communities. This developing research interest demonstrates my engagement with shifting cultural and economic contexts, and their impact upon the creative and cultural industries, throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth-centuries, but also, importantly, right now.
Recent Publications
SUTHERLAND, LUCIE, 2011. Class, Consensus and Repertoire at the Nottingham and Midland Counties Working Classes Industrial Exhibition. Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film. (In Press.)
SUTHERLAND, LUCIE, 2010. Non-local difficulties TLS (Times Literary Supplement). 18
SUTHERLAND, LUCIE, 2010. Faith's fate and 'sheitel'-gate TLS (Times Literary Supplement). 18
SUTHERLAND, LUCIE, 2008. Keep in time with the drum TLS (Times Literary Supplement). 19
Past Research
From 2006-2009 I was researcher on the AHRC funded project, 'Mapping Performance Culture: Nottingham 1857-1867'. Working closely with Dr. Jo Robinson in the School of English Studies, and with colleagues from Geographical Information Science, I identified material that formed a data corpus relating to performance events in Nottingham over a ten year period. This interdisciplinary project resulted in an interactive online map and database that can be used to systematically investigate and analyse 'intertheatricality' in mid-nineteenth century Nottingham.