Dr Dermot Daly

Curriculum development is at the heart of progressive education and is key to the success of learners, but is often difficult to conceptualise. In this paper, elements of storytelling – specifically that of character, setting and the 'problem' – are mapped across curriculum development with clear regard to equality, diversity and inclusion, which are at the heart of modern curriculum developmental investigation. Although written with an arts educational focus in mind, the conceptual ideas are applicable to all areas of education. It is argued that by using this model, which gives integral regard to equality, diversity and inclusion, the experience of the learner(s) and the pace of change, improvement and faculty goodwill is enhanced.

Access to the theatre industry is often frustrated through lack of experience. Many theatre companies have a stated aim to widen participation in order to fully represent the communities and society that they work in. This study assesses how opening up access to the rehearsal room can embolden and accelerate change as well as encourage a multiplicity of routinely marginalized voices to speak and be heard. It seeks to ask whether opening access to the rehearsal room has benefits for participants, companies and the industry at large. In this context, opening the rehearsal room means to facilitate observation access for those not directly involved in the production. After a nascent, small-scale version of the observation offer, a questionnaire was circulated to those who were invited and/or actively participated in the observation offer with conclusions drawn from responses and other related contextualizing literature. The results suggest that the offer can help to increase participation, with suggestions as to how it can be fine-tuned in further, future iterations.

The canon is widely recognised in drama school training contexts as the dramatic and practitioner texts with which actors can expect to work. The canon studied is often proscriptively - and therefore prohibitively - narrow. These two observations lead to the questioning of who, and for what industry, training actors are being prepared. Articulation of the Western bias and shortcomings of the hegemonic canon is well versed, but alternatives are often predicated on augmentation via addition. Examining and understanding the conceit by which canonical status is ascribed, achieved, and maintained, holds the answer to how the canon can be challenged and changed to allow for culture to evolve, through the plurality of stories and not regurgitation and perpetuation of those already lauded.

This paper takes, as it’s starting point, the statements of solidarity with Black and non-White students in UK drama schools which were issued in the summer of 2020 and tracks the commitments made against the writers, directors and actors who took part in the graduation shows of the following academic year. It analyses how (or if) change of representation was established in the sector as a whole and also on an institution-by-institution basis. Suggestions are made as to further changes that could be made in the actor training sector, and, by implication, all higher educational establishments.

At the time of writing, fault lines in the creative industries are clearer than they have, arguably, ever been. Who is afforded the ability to be included, to make decisions, to make work, has come into sharp relief; highlighting those who are excluded or at the margins. For those, like me, who have been – or are considered as being – at the margins, this is not a startling discovery. This thesis offers insight and strategies for disrupting marginalisation; offering starting points, evidencing benefits and giving theoretical underpinning for a reversal. These are focalised through three research questions: How can curricula, especially that used in actor training, be diversified and made more inclusive?; Why is representation of identities that are ‘on the margins’ important and how can this inclusion and diversification be sustainably achieved?; How can equitable access to performative work be fostered in its creation and dissemination? Part one comprises nine solo authored, peer reviewed, published research papers. Taking, in the main, an ethnographic approach, these published works encapsulate professional and pedagogical practice with research led conclusions, suggestions and provocations to both training/educational establishments, theatres and theatre (and performance) makers. Part two, the exegesis, offers the rationale for, and coherence of, the published work. In a timeline of significant Benchmarks, my practice, pedagogy and research are mapped against the publication of the submitted papers. The Introduction offers reasons why I am, and have been, the best person to undertake this research, which champions de-marginalisation. Discussion of my lived experience, the reasoning that my research needs to exist, as well as explorations of intersectionality and equality, diversity and inclusivity are set against the context of creating a world that my marginalised 15-year-old self would have hugely benefited from. Pulling it together looks to the methodological basis and conceptions that the published works in part one sit in, develop and are reliant on, offering my methodological praxis, conceptualised as a tripartite. Waymarkers reviews, chronologically, eight works from across disciplines which have been an influence on the published work and give rise to the ‘golden threads’ that thematically bind my work. Asking questions, the lynchpin of the exegesis, through the three research questions, situate my contributions against and in conversation with the waymarkers and recent literature, evidencing the novelty and positive contribution(s) that have been made in, by and through my work. My Conclusions extend the journeying metaphor seen throughout, offering coalescence of my contributions and suggestions of where focus needs to be next placed to create and sustain these much-needed changes. Finally, the Epilogue maps the lineage that my work speaks, and adds, to.

Hierarchical structures are inherent in education. They uphold the bases of power upon which the roles of teachers and lecturers, and the pedagogical tools they deploy rest. These power bases are rooted in and routed through practices which underpin colonialist thinking and ideology. Drawing on understandings and critiques of hierarchy and power, this paper proposes frameworks for thinking around their application and impact on the learning environment and actuation of anti-racist praxis. Through reflection on work in two practical teaching settings - university and conservatoire, suggestions are made toward the implication(s) of such praxis in both settings. The additional gains made through these approaches are delineated to give impetus to strive toward more democratic learning environments, therefore laying the foundation(s) for enactable and sustainable anti-racist practice.

The artist / researcher relationship is a curious one. The potential belligerents in this relationship are intractably linked; research (or theory) can underpin the practice but reciprocally the practice can inform the research. This could, to follow Stephen Spender, create tension ‘between...inner and outer, subjective and objective worlds’ (Zamaros, 1990) but in agreeance with Audre Lorde, I argue that ‘only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat’ (Hammond 1981: 15). This paper will explore how this relationship can - and does - produce practice rooted in the identity, predilections and understanding(s) of the artist whilst simultaneously using, testing, challenging and creating syntheses of theory. Hammond, Carla M. (1981) Audre Lorde: Interview. Denver Quarterly 16.1: 10-27. Zamaros, Panayotis (1990), Art as Tension - A vignette in honor of Stephen Spender & Louis McNeice, DrZ Network, https://de.cdn-website.com/60b9ddaa2dfc4511ae26135afd66e73f/files/uploaded/Art_as_tension.pdf

Following the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in 2020, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives have exponentially increased, and the word Anti-racism is used more now than ever. But what is our pragmatic understanding of anti-racism? What does it look like when put into practice in academia, the community, the arts?

There can be little disagreement that the pandemic disproportionately affected the arts. Whilst it removed livelihoods and purpose for many overnight, it afforded the performance industry a pause in which many thought about what and who the industry was for. The rise of streaming and online cultural activity – necessitated by governmental indicatives and changing social responsibilities – created a new type of audience and, it is argued here, the beginnings and conditions for a new genre and/or way of making work. This article argues that the ‘liveness’ of performance art is key to the essence of performing and that the streaming of ‘past glories’ did not give audiences and creatives what they needed and wanted from interactions and cultural product. In order to see positives in a potentially negative situation, a new genre – here named Live Digital – is suggested, that democratizes, empowers, facilitates and builds creative culture for artists and audiences alike. Using tropes from theatre, film and streaming, Live Digital presents provocations to posit a new way of creation, distinct from these progenitors – one that strives to be more inclusive.

Using the creation of a new piece of narrative drama with undergraduate students inspired by the meaning of ‘hero’, and the achievements of Sophia Duleep Singh and Paul Stephenson, this article will look at the intersections of history, theatre, and self. Delineating how ‘lost’ histories—when converged with present realities, can create future thinking for, and with, the artists of that future—it will touch on how creating brave spaces in which to approach such work is rooted in relationships, both interpersonal and intertextual. It will explain how looking at, learning from, and working with, Singh and Stephenson’s stories, allows for the creation of performance. In its creation, decoloniality, social justice and equality are foregrounded, providing the students with the advocacy and critical tools needed for change.

Change is a clarion cry in many of our institutions, but how can that change happen sustainably, and why should it happen at all? Through published research of representation and the promises of such from drama schools as well as an exploration around the canonical texts that underpin training, this presentation seeks to give some tangible and actionable suggestions to confront, understand, and sustain the changes needed to widen participation.

Focalised through the rehearsal process of a reading of At What A Price by the Black British playwright Una Marson, this article looks to create awareness of this particular work and that of other Black playwrights who may be lesser known in and beyond the theatre world. There is discussion of the meaning(s) of ‘Black Theatre’, the role of censorship, Britishness, as well as the canon of work available and used in drama schools. Arguments are posited as to how unearthing unpublished plays can embolden, enrich and challenge our notions of theatre, widen participation and aid efforts to decolonise curricula.

Actor training pedagogy in the West is intended to provide students with the requisite skills to succeed in their future career(s). Many of the practitioners whose theories and ideas are taught in such higher education institutions (or schools), have not changed over the last century and many of those ideas include some element of understanding – leading to the replication – of human psychology. This paper argues for the expansion of that canon of theory and practitioners by the inclusion of the theories of the psychologist Abraham Maslow as an adjunct – but not replacement – of these ideas. Using his hierarchy of needs, an additional tool becomes available to training (and nascent professional) actors, directors and maybe even dramaturgs, which could lead to a deeper understanding of the psychology of characters. Extrapolation of these ideas could also see applications in other artistic and literary focussed disciplines, in further and higher educational settings, leading to deeper and fuller understanding(s) of the texts studied and therefore the stories and ideas represented in those stories.

We’ll be interrogating the current model of touring theatre, the problems it presents and what we can do collectively to address and improve touring experiences.

Theatre festivals are exciting, celebratory and communal experiences which, in many ways, could be said to be a micro of the macro. Using, as a case study, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival - the largest example of its kind in the world - the contention that the health and direction of the (in this case, UK) theatre industry can be measured through the prism of its festivals is examined. Several metrics are examined and contextualised, leading to conclusions which offer suggestions for further work to be done in order to inspire, create and sustain a theatre industry that is inclusive, equitable and truly diverse.

Book edited by Siiri Scott and Jay Paul Skelton, London and New York, Routledge, 2023, 189 pp., (Paperback), ISBN 978-1-032-36233-5

This paper explores leadership and theories around the engagement of diverse communities in community-based theatre concluding with the proposal of a series of prevocational interrogative questions. Articulating these questions and the reasoning for them through documented UK based participatory community-centric projects, with requisite theoretical frameworks, suggestions are made with regards to leadership and planning strategies in order to engage participants in projects that have meaning and purpose. In thinking about process over product it is argued that the strategic thinking needed for successful engagement must be interrogative and reflexive and take account of all stakeholders and the wider context of the project itself.

Theatre and performance have long been used to platform, challenge, and agitate for social justice. Using contemporary work focussed on marginalised communities can facilitate and broaden the reach and understanding of such work. This paper reports on a case study using It's A MotherF**King Pleasure (FlawBored, 2023) in a formal higher education setting, examining what can be gained in the use(s) of such work. In moving through arguments advocating for working with ‘fringe’ artists and their work, the benefits of conscious enaction of critical pedagogy and the highlighting of the potential benefits to students—and educators—in their understanding of social justice, this paper argues for the inclusion of those new artists making work now, into the teaching material. The case study emphasises the importance and ability of creating a space in higher education (and beyond) for open and engaged inquiry into deeply held viewpoints, with suggestions of how to enact it, offered.

Dermot Daly discusses theatre, politics, class based access and activism with Rod Dixon on the eve of him stepping down as the Artistic Director of Red Ladder Theatre Company.

Backpages is an opportunity for the academy to engage with theatre and performance practice with immediacy and insight, and for theatre workers and performance artists to engage critically and reflectively on their work and the work of their peers.

The Next One Hundred Years (2024) is a metamodern intimate theatrical epic. Spoken by a chorus of voices - rehearsed, unrehearsed and possibly somewhere in between - the play stages a collective consciousness that spans time and distance, interior and exterior, public and private spaces, as it charts the imagined trajectory of people on this planet in the next 100 years. Written intentionally as open text - unassigned characters - designated only by numbers - the piece asks actors and collaborators working on it to imagine a future by imagining the now of performance. Is the piece audio only? In person? Hybrid? Digital? Dance with voiceover text? Scored to music? All of the above? In effect it is a performance score made to be conducted. Built compositionally as a series of motifs, themes and variations, refrains and loops, the text asks and demands expansive and inventive staging, and asks performers to bring a presentation of themselves (almost as instruments) to this orchestral text rendering for the stage. How is shared struggle and plural democracy staged? How are we all in a chorus and not silo’d into individual hero’s journeys? How is class solidarity in action something theatre can achieve? How can the communality of theatre be rekindled in the information age? This session will offer an opportunity to engage with the text (pro)actively, give space for a Q&A with Caridad and Dermot, and fiish with an opportunity to engage with the text (re)actively.

‘The quality of life depends on the questions you ask.’ The dramaturg Suzanne Bell has this August Wilson question on her wall and says that it acts as ‘the driving principle of my work as a dramaturg’ (Bell, Citation2021). There is magic in a question. There is wonder in a question. A question often points toward an answer or the need for one. I use them often in my work. What I have come to discover, or recognise, is that the questions I ask, more often than not, contain the word ‘feel’.

Using UK drama school education as the focal point, this talk will posit that the hierarchical structures that are inherent in this, often practically based in an educational setting, run counter to democratising the learning environment through widening of participation.

Civilized society is predicated on community, not individualism. Theatre and theatre practice is intrinsically based in and around community – it cannot conceivably exist without it. Quite literally, the number of co-productions in theatre is increasing and collegiate working across institutional boundaries is an understood strength. The community of ‘work’ that is studied in (and before) higher education creates a micro community, one which excludes more than it includes and one which is constantly propagated and lauded – what would happen if the canon used was different? What if it represented more? What if there was an understanding of lineage? How do we look for the missing links? How can we confront the ‘...but it’s difficult’ excuse that is often offered? Once this is confronted, we then need to look at how, and by whom, the work we hope for will be made. By thinking about audiences and leaders (both in the seminar room and the theatre) we can begin to understand how we can include a broader range of experience and understanding(s); especially those which are often rendered silent. It can be difficult but if a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, we need to ensure that our chain - community – is placing its efforts into strengthening the ties that bind.

After the murder of George Floyd many drama schools shared public statements in solidarity with the resultant protests and social zeitgeist. This is the first presentation of the results of research into the tangible changes that have happened over the year as seen through the prism of the third year productions. What has changed? What has stayed the same? Who does it affect? Why is it important?

The session will cover what canons are, how they are formed and why they are formed. It aims to challenge participants to investigate and interrogate how the current canon(s) informs and guides our views on the world and ideas around how to counter this.

Youth theatre for many is an entry point into the theatrical world but some may find participation and/or engagement difficult because of external factors. These factors may serve to remove the ability to have confidence in the stories that they wish to tell by not having the ability to see where and how those stories can and do fit into the wider ecology. This paper looks at a scheme initiated by York Theatre Royal which has the specific aim(s) of giving voice to a targeted cohort, it argues that through writing and storytelling, voice and agency can be emboldened aiding young people in overcoming other barriers to participation in theatre and wider society.

Looking at the many commonalities in the threads and themes that discussions around Black British actor training present, there is a strong suggestion of a way forward. A way to a create and sustain a more rigorous and reflexive anti-racist culture in our drama schools and institutions is a clear starting point in these themes. This chapter brings those themes together, finding parallels with what has gone before, offering pathways to what could come.

Olivier award-winning director Matthew Xia discusses what he looks for from actors during casting and rehearsals with Dermot Daly. Making reference to the critically acclaimed and commercially successful productions that he has directed (Frankenstein (2018), Shebeen (2018), One Night in Miami… (2019), Hey Duggee (2022), Tambo & Bones (2023), The Architect (2023) and The Wiz (2021)), he articulates his thoughts on knowing what a ‘good’ show is, the importance of collaboration, craft, care, the value – and need – for and of lived experience and representation, as well as the broadening of options for Black actors and creatives. Reflecting on his practice and experience, he demystifies his process from the moment an actor walks into the audition until the moment that they begin press night (and a little beyond). He concludes with his ‘advice to the players’.

Hannah Akhalu began the Stage Keys initiative in 2023 with the aim of facilitating young Black children under the age of 14 and their families to access theatre as audience members, to date, the vast majority of this work has happened in London. Much of this work challenges traditional ideas of what and who theatre is for, as well as who it ‘belongs’ to. In this interview with Dermot Daly, she discusses her own early memories of theatre and how formative they were; the importance of representation; the difficulties and barriers in accessing live theatre; the intersection(s) between race and class and how and why her initiative, Stage Keys, exists.

An academic chapter discussing what the canon is and how it works. After defining what the canon is this chapter discusses who is in it, how (or if) the canon can contribute to a sense of exclusion, why that has existed and who it benefits. It concludes with suggestions on how to create canons which include Black British actors more proactively.

A chapter focusing on the differences between the UK and USA in terms of Black culture and how it manifests. This chapter discusses research already conducted in this sphere and uses that to justify why this volume is needed. It will make clear that this context feeds directly into the world of performer training and the way in which that is seen, disseminated and thought about. Through this, the methodological underpinning of the volume will be made clear.

A chapter focusing on the differences between the UK and USA in terms of Black culture and how it manifests. This chapter discusses research already conducted in this sphere and uses that to justify why this volume is needed. It will make clear that this context feeds directly into the world of performer training and the way in which that is seen, disseminated and thought about. Through this, the methodological underpinning of the volume will be made clear.

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Hierarchical structures are inherent in education. They uphold the bases of power upon which the roles of teachers and lecturers, and the pedagogical tools they deploy, rest. These power bases are rooted in and routed through practices which underpin colonialist thinking and ideology. Drawing on understandings and critiques of hierarchy and power, this paper proposes frameworks for thinking around their application and impact on the learning environment and actuation of anti-racist praxis. Through reflection on work in two practical teaching settings - university and conservatoire, suggestions are made toward the implication(s) of such praxis in both settings. The additional gains made through these approaches are delineated to give impetus to strive toward more democratic learning environments, therefore laying the foundation(s) for enactable and sustainable anti-racist practice.

An opportunity for artists who are terrified/hopeful/curious/overwhelmed/inspired of/by the future of the sector and the world to come together to reckon and dream of more.

Drama schools and training institutions often intimate that they are training individuals ‘for the industry’. Passively, many have accepted this as a framework within which to manoeuvre, meaning that the ills of ‘the industry’ are replicated. Those ills can be seen and understood through the prism of marginalisation which has adverse effects on those offering the training and those receiving it. What would happen if we were to think differently; to think that drama schools are training the industry. That drama training is offering the tools to students to change the industry instead of the tools for maintaining it? Starting from addressing trainers’ positionality, competencies and knowledge(s) and situating this within the work of thinkers such as Audre Lorde, Peter Brook and Paulo Freire, this paper seeks to address the benefits of broader representation in the work that is used to train, and, as importantly, in those who are doing the training leading to a widening of participation. It will address the canon of work used to form curricula, the benefits of representation and equitable access to performative work in and beyond training offering a provocation to demarginalise from where we are.