Dr Kathy Smith
BEd Hons, MA (Theatre), PhD (Theatre),
FRSA
PGDip (Integrative Psychotherapy), MBACP
Kathy worked, for many years, in community theatre, in industry, and in off-site education (with young people at risk). In the late 1990s, she moved into Higher Education, becoming a lecturer at the Central School of Speech and Drama before taking up a Senior Lectureship in 2000 in Theatre Studies at London Metropolitan University. She became Course Leader for Theatre Studies in 2003, then worked within the English Literature team to develop a practice-based Theatre Studies strand within the BA English Literature pathway, before moving on to train as an Integrative Psychotherapist.
In
terms of Theatre Studies, Kathy's research interests are in contemporary theatre
and performance practices, theories of identity, spectatorship and
representation, the body-culture-representation relation (with particular
reference to thresholds, liminal moments and cultural 'rupture'), and the
theatres of Samuel Beckett and Rona Munro. Her main teaching areas concern
modern and contemporary theatres, and the relationship between theory and
practice; and she has a number of chapters and articles published in edited
collections and refereed journals, including Performance Research,
Critical Quarterly and STP.
Kathy has
been involved with TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association),
SCUDD (Standing Conference of University Drama
Departments) and CDE (German Society for Contemporary Theatre and
Drama in English), is a member of Mensa, Equity (British Actors' Equity
Association), BACP (British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy)
and UKCP (UK Council for Psychotherapy), and is a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Arts.
As a qualified
integrative psychotherapist, Kathy's current research interest - drawing on
clinical theory and practice coupled with a long-term academic and
practice-based background in theatre studies - is in the
psychosemiotics of theatre and therapy, and the complex relational web generated
by each.
July 2021