Staff Profile
Dr Helen Freshwater
Reader in Theatre & Performance
I took my PhD, MRes and undergraduate degrees at Edinburgh University, and taught at Nottingham University and Birkbeck College, London, before joining Newcastle University in 2011.
My research focuses upon twentieth century British theatre and contemporary performance. My publications include Theatre & Audience and Theatre Censorship in Britain: Silencing, Censure and Suppression (which were both published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2009). My new book, Theatre and its Audiences: Reimagining the Relationship in Times of Crisis (co-authored with Kate Craddock) will be published by Bloomsbury in January 2024.
I was Co-Investigator on 'Understanding Audiences for the Contemporary Arts', an AHRC-funded research project which concluded in 2020.
Research Interests
My research focuses upon twentieth century British theatre and contemporary performance. I have published on audiences, participation and interactivity; censorship; archive theory and historiography; and British physical theatres. I continue to track the evolution of our understanding of audiences, and have an ongoing interest in contemporary British performance made for, with, and about children.
My new book, Theatre and its Audiences: Reimagining the Relationship in Times of Crisis (co-authored with Kate Craddock) will be published by Bloomsbury in January 2024.
Postgraduate Supervision
I welcome applications from postgraduate students interested in working in any of the above fields.
Current PhD Supervisions
Hannah Wilkin – ‘Contemporary Playwriting: Respect, Responsibility and Representation: Negotiating Distance and Experience’ (co-supervised with Dr Zoe Cooper)
Tamsin Rees – ‘The Possibilities of Silence: Negotiating Power in Contemporary Narratives’ (co-supervised with Dr Zoe Cooper)
Past PhD Supervisions
Amelia Joicey – ‘Glitter and Glue: Examining the Role of Young People’s Participation at Northern Stage, 1967-2017’ (co-supervised with Dr Andrew Law)
Andrew Latimer – ‘Beyond 'Geordie-rama': Contemporary Performance in North East England, 2017-18’ (co-supervised with Dr Alex Niven)
Jamie Harper – ‘Play and cultural transformation : designing for reflexive agency in participatory performance’ (co-supervised with Dr James Ash)
Tracy Gillman – ‘The Fugitive Archive, the creative writer in the archive’ (co-supervised with Prof Sean O’Brien)
Fiona Evans – ‘Radaptation : adapting ancient Greek tragedy in the twenty-first century’ (co-supervised with Dr Margaret Wilkinson)
Ella Paremain – ‘A History of the Tricycle Theatre: Audience, Identity and Agency’ (co-supervised with Dr Aoife Monks and Dr Kate Dorney)
Maggie Inchley – ‘Inclusion and betrayal: voice in British new theatre writing and performance, 1997-2007’ (co-supervised with Dr Aoife Monks)
In Semester 1 2023-24 I will be on research leave.
In Semester 2 will I be convening and teaching on SEL1031 'Drama, Theatre, Performance'.
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Articles
- Freshwater H. Consuming Authenticities: Billy Elliot the Musical and the Performing Child. The Lion and the Unicorn 2012, 36(2), 154-173.
- Freshwater H. 'You Say Something': Audience Participation and The Author. Contemporary Theatre Review 2011, 21(4), 405-409.
- Freshwater H. The Author: Tim Crouch in Conversation with Helen Freshwater. Performing Ethos 2011, 1(2), 181-196.
- Freshwater H. Sex, Violence and Censorship: London’s Grand Guignol and the negotiation of the limit. Theatre Research International 2007, 32(3), 247-262.
- Freshwater H. Fingers on the collective pulse? Frantic Assembly and the future of theatre. Performance Research 2004, 9(3), 30-43.
- Freshwater H. The Allure of the Archive. Poetics Today 2003, 24(4), 729-758.
- Freshwater H. Anti-theatrical Prejudice and the Persistence of Performance: the Lord Chamberlain's Plays and Correspondence Archive. Performance Research 2002, 7(4), 50-58.
- Freshwater H. The Ethics of Indeterminacy: Theatre de Complicite’s Mnemonic. New Theatre Quarterly 2001, 17(3), 212-218.
- Freshwater H. Suppressed Desire: dramatic inscriptions of lesbianism in 1930s Britain. New Theatre Quarterly 2001, 17(4), 310-318.
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Authored Books
- Freshwater H. Theatre Censorship in Britain: Silencing, Censure and Suppression. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
- Freshwater H. Theatre & Audience. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
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Book Chapters
- Freshwater H. Agency, Power, and the Inner Child: The "Revolting Children" of Matilda The Musical. In: Ruwe D; Leve J, ed. Children, Childhood, and Musical Theater. London: Routledge, 2020, pp.164-187.
- Freshwater H. British theatre and the people formerly known as the audience. In: Harvie, J and Rebellato, D, ed. The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. In Preparation.
- Freshwater H. The censorship of the stage: writing on the edge of the allowed. In: Powell, K; Raby, P, ed. Oscar Wilde in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp.278-288.
- Freshwater H. Children and the Limits of Representation in the Work of Tim Crouch. In: Angelaki, V, ed. Contemporary British Theatre: Breaking New Ground. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp.167-188.
- Freshwater H. Delirium: In Rehearsal with theatre O. In: Mermikides, A, Smart, J, ed. Devising in Process. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp.128-146.
- Freshwater H. ‘Physical Theatre: Complicite and the Question of Authority’. In: Holdsworth, N., Luckhurst, M, ed. A Concise Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Drama. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007, pp.171-199.
- Freshwater H. Towards a Redefinition of Censorship. In: Müller, B, ed. Censorship and Cultural Regulation in the Modern Age. Amsterdam and New York: Rodophi, 2004, pp.225-245.
- Freshwater H. Performance Theory, Practice, and the Intrusion of the Real. In: Scanlon, J; Waste A, ed. Crossing Boundaries: Thinking through Literature. United Kingdom: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, 2001, pp.189-199.