Alan Read Email & Phone Number

London, Gb

Director of the Performance Foundation:Virginia Woolf BuildingRoom 6.4522 KingswayLondon WC2R2LSwww.performancefoundation.org.ukSince 2006 I have worked within the English Department at King's developing opportunities for performance and theatre study, research and practice. I initiated the Performance Foundation in 2008 to lead on the conception, planning, fund raise and re-build of FW Troupe's 1927 masterpiece the Anatomy Theatre & Museum on the Strand that had fallen into disrepair in the 1990s. In collaboration with Professor Sheila Anderson and the Centre for e Research and with the support of King's Business, £1.5m was raised from the Teaching Innovation Fund to bring these remarkable spaces back into 24/7 use. They became the studio facility for the new MA Theatre & Performance Studies and continue to operate as our operational base.In 2010 in collaboration with Katharine Rabson Stark, and Mark Miodownik and Zoe Laughlin of the Materials Library (now UCL) a dynamic bid was made to secure, restore and refit the basement levels of the East Wing of Somerset House as the Inigo Rooms dedicated to research and play. Her Majesty the Queen opened the spaces in February 2012. Subsequently the Inigo Rooms have been occupied by the newly established King's Cultural Institute (now Culture Team).During this time I have held major ESRC Bridging the Gaps (£350,000) and Leverhulme (£187,000) Awards over 3 years respectively as well as securing with Greg Whelan of Lone Twin one of the last AHRC Creative Awards over 5 years.I have published 4 monographs while at King's: Theatre, Intimacy & Engagement (2008), Theatre in the Expanded Field (2014) Theatre & Law (2016), and The Dark Theatre (2020), numerous journal articles and three essays broadcast on BBC Radio 4: Plato's Cave (2012), Dreadful Trade (2014) and Soul Estuary (2016). I am currently writing a long-form book on the ‘Prehistory’ of Performance and maintaining a short-form daily cultural chronicle on X.

Since 1991 I have worked as an affiliated Professor of Boston University through their London Programmes engaging with London theatre ranging from Artangel events through to West End musicals.

London, United Kingdom

Founding Director of Theatre Capital programme in collaboration with Performance Foundation. This three month, recurring, annual Fall initiative, a partnership between UC Berkeley Global Edge Programme and Accent in London was brokered by Professor Catherine Cole at Berkeley and Alan Read in London involving 40 first year undergraduate students experiencing contemporary UK performance.

Worked with the Roehampton Department of Drama, Theatre and Performance as their first Professor of Theatre to continue their project to establish a centre for theatre and performance study with a spine of practice based and social purpose. Directed AHRC 5 year project, Performance Architecture and Location (2001-2006) during which curated seven day peripatetic event CIVIC CENTRE: Reclaiming the Right to Performance (2003, coordinated by Gianna Bouchard and Emma Velde. See publication Performance Research, 'On Civility'.). Collaborated on creation of Centre for Theatre Research in Europe (2006). Supervised PhD submissions from Dr Simon Bayly, Dr Gianna Bouchard, Dr Ernst Fischer, Dr John Matthews, Dr Ilana Ortar, among others.

Worked with Helena Reckitt and Joanna Labon, Simon Critchley and Sonu Shamdasani, Lois Keidan and Catherine Ugwu, Emma Dexter and Kate Bush, Simon Field and Nicky Gelani to curate upwards of 500 public talks and conferences ranging across philosophy, architecture, literature, politics, psychoanalysis, film, fashion, visual arts, music and performance. Talks are now archived at the British Library Sound Archive under ICA Talks. Events included: Spaced Out, The Scapegoat, The Uncanny, Addressing Dressing, Mirage. Publications include: The Fact of Blackness (Bay Press, 1997) and Architecturally Speaking (Routledge, 2000). Artists and thinkers hosted included: Patti Smith, Mark E Smith, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Nadine Gordimer, S.E.Hinton, Lorrie Moore, John Berger, Beatriz Colomina, Bret Easton Ellis, Peter Sellars, Allesandro Joddorowski, Pierre Guyotat, Rene Girard, Laurie Anderson amongst others.

Worked alongside David Slater and members of the Rotherhithe neighbourhood to continue and develop a long term theatre project established by Dartington College of Arts in the docklands area of South East London in 1977. Between 1983 and 1991 collaborated on numerous student led and neighbourhood driven events ranging from large scale street ceremonies to theatrical productions in the disused Peek Freans factory, schools work, alliances with local partners and educational institutions. Acted as tutor and colleague to 8 year's of Dartington third year students on placement and living in the immediate area among whom were: Kevin Finnan (Motionhouse), Andrew Siddall (Emergency Exit Arts), Ewan Forster and Christopher Heighes (Forster and Heighes), Andrea Phillips (Gothenburg), Fred McVittie (Dartington at Falmouth), William Kerley (Philadelphia Opera), Sadie Hennessy (independent artist), Joe and Christine Lawlor (Desperate Optimists).

Collaborated with Peter Hulton, Colette King and Halvor Lervik from the Council of Europe to bring 170 international artists and theatre makers together for a week in April 1983 in Dartington to explore the impact their work had made in their respective communities over a minimum of a ten year period.

Phd, Theatre & Politics

Activities and Societies: Worked alongside Ellie Donkin and John Lutterbie with faculty including Bob Egan, Barry Witham and Leigh Sealey.

Drama, Drama, English

Participating in the first year of Single Honours Drama at Exeter in a small but remarkable group of fellow artist practitioners was both.