Staff profiles
Dr Wendy Hubbard
Lecturer in Drama and Performance (E&S)
I am a director, dramaturg and writer, making new theatre and performance that is formally innovative and politically engaged. I have often lead devising processes and co-directed. I also collaborate on the work of other theatre makers. I have worked on text-led projects, installation, opera, and performances inflected by visual-art, butoh and clown. My current work includes Rachel Mars' durational performance installation Forge as dramaturg and co-director. Recent work as lead-artist includes devised immersive performance Kingdom Come, for the RSC, co-written and -directed with Gemma Brockis (Shunt).
I hold a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. My thesis, 'In Company: Apparitions of Togetherness in Contemporary Theatre and Performance', thinks with the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, as well as feminist psychoanalysis and political theory, about the stage as a commons and a shared space.
Research interests
Research Interests include:
Contemporary Theatre and Performance
Postdramatic Theatre
Devising, directing and collaboration
Individualism, neo-liberalism and democracy
History of Emotions
Performance Philosophy especially the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy
Nonsense and Philosophies of Language
Antitheatricality and the English Civil War
Biography
My BA at the University of Leeds was in English Literature and Theatre Studies. I trained in Physical Theatre and Mime with Desmond Jones. I went on to complete first an MA Performance and then a PhD in Contemporary Theatre and Performance at Queen Mary, University of London.
Over twenty years I've made work in many different contexts, from the RSC to the RVT, Shunt Lounge and the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court and collaborated with artists including Melanie Wilson, Jamie Wood, Rachel Mars. Several productions have won awards and toured internationally. More detail can be found on my website: www.wendyhubbard.net
Key Theatre and Performance Projects include:
Co-director and co-writer of Kingdom Come, an unsettling immersive production about the spectacle of revolution and the closure of the theatres in the English Civil War, commissioned by Royal Shakespeare Company for Mischief season of experimental work in The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, 2017. Research and Development supported by National Theatre Studio, Arts Council England, FUEL, Cove Park and Royal Shakespeare Company. Devised with collaborators including composer Melanie Wilson.
Co-director and dramaturg of Rachel Mars' FORGE, durational installation performance in which she welds together a replica of the gate stolen from Dachau concentration camp in 2014. Presented at Transform Festival, Leeds 2022, Barbican, London, MAYK, Bristol and Horizon International Showcase, Edinburgh 2023.
Co-director and dramaturg of Rachel Mars' Our Carnal Hearts, study of competitive individualism and envy with sharp songs, first presented Shoreditch Town Hall, London 2016, Ongoing international tour.
Academic publications include:
Hubbard, Wendy, 'Cassils with Jean-Luc Nancy' in Performance Research, 'On Touch', 27.1, 2022, pp.38-45. DOI: 10.1080/13528165.2022.211735
Hubbard, Wendy, 'Review: The Creative Critic: Writing as/about Practice: edited by Katja Hilevaara and Emily Orley, London & New York: Routledge, 2018, 304 pp' in Contemporary Theatre Review, 30, 2020, pp.113-115, DOI: 10.1080/10486801.2020.1703436
Hubbard, Wendy, 'Falling Faint: On Syncopated Spectatorship and The Author,Performance Research, 'On Falling', 18:4, 2013, pp.22-29. DOI: 10.1080/13528165.2013.814341