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5th July, 2018

Central Welcomes New Academics

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The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama is pleased to share that two new members of its Academic team will take up their posts in the Summer 2018 term.

Dr Kathrine Sandys joins Central as Principal Lecturer in Theatre Practice, and also will serve initially as Head of Theatre Practice, working across a number of areas within the Theatre Practice team.  Dr Sandys has worked nationally and internationally as a lighting designer, exhibit designer, and scenographer with companies and collaborators including Opera North, the Prague Festival Ballet, Harare International Festival of Arts and Tate Liverpool, to name just a few. She is currently the Convenor of the Scenography Working Group for the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) and a member of the Management Committee of the Society of British Theatre Designers, as well as an active member of several other academic and professional organisations. Dr Sandys has taught and held key managerial roles at LIPA, Mountview and Rose Bruford. Her current work explores the repurposing of and questions of affect in cold war bunkers, in conjunction with English Heritage.

Of joining Central, Dr Sandys said:

“I’m delighted to be part of the exciting and innovative work produced here at Central.  I have received a warm welcome into a friendly and dynamic community of students and staff.  We have world class alumni and have great opportunities for growth, nurturing development of a future generation of practitioners.  We are at an interesting time in how audiences consume live and recorded performance, reaching across so many platforms.  I’m looking forward to our team exploring ways of learning and teaching scenography and theatrecraft through experimentation across these multi-platform opportunities.”

Professor Peter M. Boenisch joins Central as its Professor of European Theatre.  Professor Boenisch, who is originally from Munich, was previously Professor of European Theatre at the University of Kent. Prior to that, he was a lecturer/ assistant professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, from which he also received his PhD on corporealities and physical movement in contemporary dance, theatre, and performance.  His main research areas are the fields of theatre directing and dramaturgy, as well as contemporary dance and performance, with a particular focus on the German- and Dutch-speaking European countries.  Professor Boenisch collaborates regularly with German theatre director Thomas Ostermeier, the artistic director of Schaubühne Berlin, on research in the methodology of theatre directing; they co-authored the volume “The Theatre of Thomas Ostermeier” (Routledge 2016).

Aside from his extensive publications Professor Boenisch was, at Kent, a founding co-director of the European Theatre Research Network (ETRN), which will continue its European networking activities in theatre research under joint inter-institutional auspices of Central and the University of Kent.  Of his appointment, he said:

“I am delighted to join the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, and to continue, within the School’s dynamic and innovative research environment, my work as an intermediary voice between non-English European theatre practices and artists, and UK theatre makers and institutions. Whether in the fields of playwriting, dramaturgy or theatre direction, there have been numerous productive encounters and stimulating exchanges between the differing theatre cultures of the UK and Continental Europe, especially since the 1990s. I take my appointment as Professor of European Theatre in the present uncertain times of Brexit above all as a clear signal of the School’s commitment to an ongoing transcultural dialogue across borders of countries, aesthetics, ideologies, and theatre systems.”

Boenisch is a Fellow of the Berlin-based International Research College ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’.


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