Professor Stephen Farrier

Teaching Area

Currently Stephen is open to approaches for PhD supervision in broad areas related to queer, gender, and popular performance.  He has successfully supervised to projects in the areas of:

1st Supervisor

Simon Dodi                   Camp: Performativity through performance (2021)

Helen Evans                  Participatory Theatre: About Turn (2020)

Joseph Parslow             When The Lights Are Shining On Them: Drag performance and queer communities in London (2020)

Lazlo Pearlman              Stripping Bare and Telling Lies: Strategies for creating productive disruption via ‘autobiographical’ and ‘confessional’ solo performance (2019)

Hannah Ballou              hoo:ha: illuminating and exploiting a dissonance between funniness and sexiness with the female comic body in performance (2016)

Phoenix Thomas            Fabricating Alternative Realities: The craft of queering costume design (2016)

Joseph Mercier             Fucking With Ballet: Performing queer negativity (2014)

Nando Messias             Towards a New Sissiography: Reinscribing the Sissy in body, abuse and space in dance-theatre performance (2012)

2nd Supervisor

Broderick Chow            How To Do Things With Jokes: Relocating the political dimension of performance comedy (2010)

Currently involved in PhD projects working in the areas of:

·       Queer Dramaturgy

·       Gender theory and performance analysis

·       Queer nightlife

·       Queer scenography

·       Camp performance

·       Drag performance

·       Cripqueer performance

Qualifications

PhD University of North London. Thesis: Queer Reading Queer Reading: Towards A Queer Reading Praxis

MA Modern Drama Studies, University of North London

BA (hons) Combined Studies Humanities, Nene College, Leicester University

Memberships

Theatre and Performance Research Association

International Federation of Theatre Research

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

External Duties

External examinerships:
2021     External Examiner, PhD, Salford University

2020     External Examiner, PhD, Leeds Beckett University

2019     External Examiner, PhD, University of Toronto

2013     External Examiner, BA Applied Theatre, University of Northumbria

2012     External Examiner, MA Creative Industries, London Metropolitan

2011     External Examiner, PhD, Glasgow University

2008    External Examiner, BA Applied Drama and work-based learning module at University of Wales, Newport

2007     External Examiner, BA Performing Arts, London Metropolitan University

Other selected sector roles

2021                 Chair, Conservatoires UK Research Ethics Committee

2020                 With Professor Maria Delgado, invited by UK Research and Innovation as an advisor from the small specialist arts sector for the development of a policy to establish a national Research Integrity Committee

2020                 Steering committee member for Staging Australian Women’s Lives: Theatre, Feminism and Socially Engaged Art (Australian Research Council Discovery Projects initiative) Monash University, Australia

2020                 Associate artist with WreckedALLprods, an international queer theatre company

2019                 Steering/Queering Group of Queer@Queens, Queen’s University, Belfast

2017                 Invited to consult on the early and subsequent development of Wretched Theatre, a company working with refugee/migrant actors, mentor to the AD

2015                 Invited as a specialist advisor for a PhD project on camp in performance, Goldsmiths College, University of London

2013                 Invited as honorary member of Matters of the Body Research Cluster at Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne

2010-2013        Co-convenor of the Performance, Identity and Community Working Group at Theatre and Performance Research Association

Board Membership

Milk Presents Theatre Company

Advisory Board member Contemporary Theatre Review

Editorial Board member Studies in Theatre and Performance

Publications

Books, Edited and Authored

Britain, J. Rotterdam, edited by Stephen Farrier, Bloomsbury 2021.

Campbell, A. & Farrier, S. (Eds) Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer. London: Palgrave, 2015.  Shortlisted for the TaPRA Editing Prize 2017.

Edward, M. & Farrier, S. (Eds) Contemporary Drag Practices and Performers. Drag in a Changing Scene Vol 1. London: Bloomsbury Methuen, 2020.

Edward, M. & Farrier, S. (Eds) Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories. Drag in a Changing Scene Vol 2.  2020.

Chapters

Campbell, A.  Cohen, M., Farrier, S. and McCann, H. ‘Embracing feral pedagogies: Queer feminist education through queer performance’ in P. J. Burke, J. Coffery, R. Gill, and A. Kani, Gender and education in an era of post-truth populism: struggles, challenges and strategies. London: Bloomsbury, 2022 pp. 193-210.

Campbell, A. & Farrier, S. ‘Crip/Queer Performance: A Dialogue with Margrit Shildrick and Robert McRuer’ in Campbell, A. & Farrier, S. (Eds) Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer. London: Palgrave, 2016 pp. 263-278.

Edward, M & Farrier, S. ‘Drag: Applying Foundation and Setting the Scene’, Edward, M. & Farrier, S. (Eds) Contemporary Practices and Performers. Drag in a Changing Scene Vol 1. London: Bloomsbury Methuen, 2020 pp. 1-17.

Farrier, S. ‘Not a cock in a frock, but a Hole story: Drag and the mark of the ‘bioqueens’’ Edward, M. & Farrier, S. (Eds) Contemporary Practices and Performers. Drag in a Changing Scene Vol 1. London: Bloomsbury Methuen, 2020 pp.103-115.

Farrier, S. ‘Kinging the Stage – Drag Kings, Historical Narratives and the Slap of the Popular’ Edward, M. & Farrier, Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories. Drag in a Changing Scene Vol 2. London: Bloomsbury Methuen, 2020 pp.57 – 68.

Farrier, S. ‘Re-membering AIDS, Dis-membering form’, in Viral Dramaturgies: HIV and AIDS in Performance in the Twenty-First Century. Campbell, A. & Gindt, D. (Eds) London: Palgrave, 2018, pp. 155-172.

Farrier, S. ‘That Lip-Syncing Feeling. Drag Performance as Digging the Past’ in Campbell, A. & Farrier, S. (Eds) Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer. London: Palgrave, 2015, pp. 192- 209.

Farrier, S. ‘It’s About Time, Queer Utopias and Theatre Performance’ in A Critical Inquiry Into Queer Utopia. Jones, A. (Ed.), Palgrave, 2013, pp. 47-68.

Busby, S. & Farrier, S. ‘Kane & Queer: The Fluidity of Bodies, Gender, Identity and Structure’ in Alternatives Within the Mainstream II: British Postwar Queer Theatres. Godiwali, D. (Ed) Cambridge Scholars, 2007, pp. 142 – 159.

Articles (peer reviewed)

Campbell, A. Farrier, S. & Kumarswamy, M.G. (Eds) ‘What’s Queer About Queer Performance Now?’ a special edition of Contemporary Theatre Review, Due 2023.

Farrier, S. ‘International Influences and Drag: Just a Case of Tucking or Binding?’, Theatre, Dance and Performer Training, Vol. 8, no. 2, July 2017, pp. 171-187. DOI  10.1080/19443927.2017.1317657.

Farrier, S ‘Then and Now. Joe Orton: Sticky Stories, Queer History, Queer Dramaturgy’, Studies in Theatre and Performance, Vol.37, no. 2, 2017, pp184-204. DOI: 10.1080/14682761.2017.1320066.

Farrier, S. ‘Playing With Time. Gay Intergenerational Performance Work and the Productive Possibilities of Queer Temporalities’, Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 62, no. 10. November 2015, pp. 1398-1418. DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2015.1061361.

Campbell, A. & Farrier, S. ‘Queer Practice as Research, A Fabulously Messy Business’ in Theatre Research International, vol. 40, no. 1. February 2015, pp. 83-87. DOI:10.1017/S0307883314000601.

Farrier, S. & McNamara, C. (Eds.) ‘Editorial’ Research in Drama Education The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, Vol. 18 No. 2 May 2013, pp. 111-119.

Farrier, S.  ‘Approaching Performance Through Praxis’ Studies in Theatre and Performance, Vol.25 No. 2 2005, pp. 129-144.

Other

Encyclopaedia entry:

Farrier, S. ‘Theater, Queer’, Global Encyclopaedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2019, pp 1573-1581 (6000 words).

Blog post: https://www.stagingdecadence.com/blog/sniffing-out-a-past  With Nando Messais (2021 – 7500 words).

News

Edward, M. & Farrier, S. ‘Drag culture may be mainstream but its forms are constantly evolving’ for The Conversation, October 2019.

Farrier, S. Review of Queer 1950s, Journal of the International Network of Sexual Ethics and Politics Vol. 4, Issue 1/2016, pp. 117–120.

Selected Conference Papers/Panel Membership
2022     ‘Intention/in-tension. Some reflections on the where of queer performance’. IFTR Reykjavik University, Iceland.

2022     Invited – ‘Research ethics in practice research’ – United Kingdom Research Integrity Office (UKRIO)

2021     ‘Exclusion, Inclusion, Evolution: A proposal for a history of drag performance’. TaPRA, online

2021     ‘Spreading Fertiliser and Cooking up Feral Queer Camps’. With Alyson Campbell IFTR, online

2021     Invited – (With Alyson Campbell) Feral Queer Camp, a series of virtual workshops for Midsumma Queer Arts Festival, Melbourne.  Funded by Midsumma

2021     Invited –- ‘solo queer performance practice and decadence’ (with Nando Messias), Goldsmiths, London

2020     Invited – ‘Shared roots and shared fruits. Drag, historical perspectives and performance practice’. Queen Mary University of London

2020     Joint chair with Alyson Campbell – ‘What’s Queer and Queer Performance Now?’, public discussion with Krishna Istha, Julie McNamara, Lachlan Philpott, Lou Wall and Tahlee Fereday, Theatre Works, Melbourne

2020     Invited – (With Alyson Campbell) Feral Queer Camp, a series of workshops for Midsumma Queer Arts Festival, funded through the University of Melbourne

2019     Invited – panel member on Global Queer Voices, new writing, Arcola Theatre, London

2019     Invited – (With Alyson Campbell) Feral Queer Camp, a series of workshops for Outburst Queer arts festival, Belfast

2019     Invited – ‘Drag: Surviving and Thriving’. Public Seminar, Guildhall School of Music & Drama

2019     ‘Dragging identities – or how to make drag even queerer’ Theatre and Performance Research Association, Exeter University

2019     ‘The Mark of Bio-Queens, Female drag performance in urban settings’ International Federation of Theatre Research world congress, Shanghai Theatre Academy, China

2019     ‘Queer Dramaturgy and Sticky Stories: Making Messy Sense’ Analysing Plays in the Twenty-First Century: A Critical Conversation for the Centre for Contemporary British Theatre, Goldsmiths College, London

2019     Invited – panel member post show discussion for Outbox’s And The Rest Of Me Floats, at the Bush Theatre, London

2018     (With Alyson Campbell) Feral Queer Camp, a series of workshops for Outburst Queer arts festival, Belfast

2018     Panel Member – ‘Forms of Resistance, Resistance to Form’. Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Boston, USA

2018     ‘Speaking Across Borders. Connecting International Queer Performance’. International Federation of Theatre Research world congress, University of Arts, Belgrade, Serbia

2018     Invited – panel member speaking on queer dramaturgies for the launch of London Southbank University’s Centre for Digital Storymaking, ATOM-R performance group, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

2017     ‘Kinging the Theatre – Popular Drag and the Slap of Commercialisation’ Theatre and Performance Research Association, University of Salford, UK

2017     ‘Passing Performance: Unstable Histories and the Economy of Intergenerational Knowledges’, with Ben Buratta, International Federation of Theatre Research world congress, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

2017     Invited – in conversation with performer and artist Nando Messias at the launch of thier film Shoot the Sissy, Live Art Development Agency, London

2017     Panel member ‘Drag Training’, Manchester Drag Symposium, Manchester Central Library

2016     ‘Joe Orton, queer histories and thinking the queer theatrical past’ International Federation of Theatre Research world congress, University of Stockholm

2015     Invited – chair of panel discussion on HIV, AIDS and performance.  Panel members were a mix of academics, activists and theatre makers, Queens University, Belfast

2015     ‘Sticky stories.  Queerer histories and troubling narratives in gay intergenerational theatre’, with Ben Buratta, Outbox LGBT Theatre, Queer at Queens (part of Outburst queer arts festival), Queens University, Belfast

2015     Invited – Chair of a discussion panel on ‘Making Queer Spaces’ at the Canadian High Commission

2015     ‘Are We Done Yet? Queer Temporalities, Gentrification, Vanishment’. TaPRA, University of Worcester

2015     Invited – ‘Talking About Time: Intergenerational Performance and the Connective Tissue in Queer Temporality’.  For the research seminar Contested Communities: communality, dissonance and belonging, Theatre Applied Research Centre, RCSSD

2015     ‘Sisters (and brothers) are doing it for themselves! Theorising popular drag as queering inheritance and transmission’, with Simon Dodi and Joe Parslow for a panel entitled; ‘Bona To Vada Your Dolly Old Eek. Queer Lineages, Campiness and Popular Performance’. At Theorising the Popular, international Conference, Liverpool Hope

2014     Invited – ‘Lip Service. Drag performance – digging the past and serving the future’, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne

Selected Professional Practice

2019                 Kissing Annie Lennox, Devised, Brighton Fringe

2018                 Buckets, Adam Barnard, Central School of Speech and Drama

2016-2017        Hetty The King (and Other Women I Have Loved).  Devised, Brighton Fringe, (Brighton Fringe Award Nominee 2016)

2015                 Ginger: A Small Show About The Big C. Devised, Basement, Brighton Fringe

Additional Information

Email: [email protected]