Professor Elizabeth Tomlin

Professor in Theatre and Performance (Theatre, Film & Television Studies)

telephone: 1962
email: Elizabeth.Tomlin@gla.systa-s.com

Gilmore Halls

Biography

My undergraduate honours degree was in English Literature (I) at the University of Sheffield. I took an MA in Theatre Studies at the University of Leeds and gained my PhD which explored the work of playwright Howard Barker at the University of Sheffield in 1996.

My first academic post was at Manchester Metropolitan University where I held the post of Research Fellow in Performing Arts from 1997-2006. From 1999 – 2006, in parallel with my post at MMU, I was the co-artistic director of Point Blank Theatre where I wrote and directed the nationally touring productions Dead Causes (2000), Nothing to Declare (2001/2) (in which I also performed), Operation Wonderland (2004) and Roses and Morphine (2005). During my time with Point Blank I also led substantial education projects with children and adults across South Yorkshire, and directed community and youth theatre productions.

In 2006 I began my first full time academic post at the University of Birmingham and was Head of Drama from 2015 - 2017 when I left to join the Theatres Studies team at Glasgow.

Research interests

I specialise in the analysis of British and European contemporary theatre and performance (post-1990) through the lens of critical and philosophical theory, mostly in the context of the politics of cultural production. Most recently, my focus has been to address the relative absence of class in the academic analysis of theatre, and undertake an examination of working-class representation and participation.

In 2022 I was awarded an AHRC research leadership fellowship to explore figurations of working class subjects in UK theatre practice and policy, resulting in a major conference at Glasgow and two key publications:

Staging Class Conflict in the UK

Staging Class Conflict in the UK

Class and Theatre

https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/jclc/4/2

Prior to this project I was PI on the AHRC-funded research network, Incubate- Propagate, which examined, in partnership with Arts funding bodies, emerging artists and independent producers, how platforms for artist development might be extended and diversified to increase access routes into the profession for non-graduate theatre-makers. Following the workshops that took place in Leeds, London and Glasgow (2018-19) I co-edited the special journal issue, Artist Development: Class, Diversity and Exclusion (2020), with contributions from the project participants and beyond.

Artist Development: Class, Diversity and Exclusion

Studies in Theatre and Performance: Vol 40, No 3 (tandfonline.com)

In addition to my work on class politics in theatre I also research and publish on contemporary playwrights, most recently Anthony Neilson (2021) and Martin Crimp (pending).

I continue, on occasion, to develop my research-led practice in writing for performance and contemporary dramaturgies of theatre-making. Most recently I have written and performed two spoken-word texts: The Cassandra Commission (2014-15), and Medusa’s Lament (2024) which form two parts of an eventual trilogy exploring ideological interpellation of the spectator in the context of climate crisis.

The first is available to read as the epilogue in:

Political Dramaturgies and Theatre Spectatorship: Provocations for Change

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/political-dramaturgies-and-theatre-spectatorship-9781474295604/

The second is included in the special issue journal Class and Theatre (see above).

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1995

Number of items: 37.

2025

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2025) Staging Class Conflict in the UK. Series: Elements in theatre, performance and the political. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. ISBN 9781009598613 (doi: 10.1017/9781009394222)

2021

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2021) Political dramaturgies of affect: Anthony Neilson’s God in Ruins and The Wonderful World of Dissocia. In: Aragay, Mireia, Delgado-García, Cristina and Middeke, Martin (eds.) Affects in 21st-Century British Theatre: Exploring Feeling on Page and Stage. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 85-104. ISBN 9783030584856 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-58486-3_5)

2020

Tomlin, Elizabeth ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2020) Incubate Propagate Project Report. Project Report. Incubate-Propogate Project.

McKinney, Joslin and Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2020) Introduction to special issue: artist development: class, diversity and exclusion. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 40(3), pp. 231-241. (doi: 10.1080/14682761.2020.1807215)

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2020) Why we still need to talk about class. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 40(3), pp. 251-264. (doi: 10.1080/14682761.2020.1807213)

2019

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2019) Political Dramaturgies and Theatre Spectatorship: Provocations for Change. Series: Methuen drama engage. Methuen Drama: London. ISBN 9781474295604

2018

Tomlin, Elizabeth ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2018) Elargir la participation : L’impact de la politique du Nouveau Parti travailliste sur les pratiques des compagnies théâtrales anglaises de 1997 à 2010. In: Hamidi-Kim, Bérénice and Russet, Séverine (eds.) Troupes, companies, collectifs dan les arts vivants: Organisation du travial processus de création et conjonctures. Series: Les Voies de l'acteur. Editions l'Entretemps: Paris. ISBN 9782355392337

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2018) A victory for real people: dangers in the discourse of democratisation. Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 6(1), pp. 234-248. (doi: 10.1515/jcde-2018-0023)

2017

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2017) Incubate: Propagate. Networked Ecologies of New Performance-Making. Other. Liz Tomlin. (Unpublished)

2015

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2015) 'Constellations of singularities': the rejection of representative democracy in Coney's Early Days (of a better nation). Studies in Theatre and Performance, 36(1), pp. 27-34. (doi: 10.1080/14682761.2015.1111014)

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2015) Gareth White: Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation. Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, 3(1), pp. 212-215. (doi: 10.1515/jcde-2015-0018)[Book Review]

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2015) The academy and the marketplace: avant-garde performance in neoliberal times. In: Jannarone, Kimberly (ed.) Vanguard Performance Beyond Left and Right. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI, pp. 264-282. ISBN 9780472119677

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2015) British Theatre Companies : 1995-2014 : Mind the Gap, Kneehigh Theatre, Suspect Culture, Stan's Cafe, Blast Theory, Punchdrunk. Series: British theatre companies: from fringe to mainstream, 3. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama: London. ISBN 9781408177273

2014

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2014) Citational theory in practice: a performance analysis of characterisation and identity in Katie Mitchell’s staging of Martin Crimp’s texts. Contemporary Theatre Review, 24(3), pp. 373-377. (doi: 10.1080/10486801.2014.921057)

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2014) Laura Cull: Theatres of Immanence: Deleuze and the Ethics of Performance. New Theatre Quarterly, 30(2), pp. 197-198. (doi: 10.1017/S0266464X1400030X)[Book Review]

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2014) Theatre of the Real by Carol Martin. Modern Drama, 57(2), pp. 280-282. [Book Review]

2013

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2013) Acts and Apparitions: Discourses on the Real in Performance Practice and Theory, 1990-2010. Manchester University Press: Manchester. ISBN 9780719083723

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2013) Foreword: dramatic developments. In: Agelaki, Vicky (ed.) Contemporary British Theatre: Breaking New Ground. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, viii-xxvi. ISBN 9781137010131

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2013) ‘Make a map, not a tracing’: from pedagogy to dramaturgy. Contemporary Theatre Review, 23(2), pp. 120-127. (doi: 10.1080/10486801.2013.777059)

2012

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2012) The Pool Game. [Performance]

2011

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2011) A 'political suspension of the ethical': to be straight with you (2007) and an evening with psychosis (2009). Performing Ethos, 1(2), pp. 167-180. (doi: 10.1386/peet.1.2.167_1)

2010

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2010) Beyond representation: re-membering the 'ghosts' of recent history in contemporary performance. Critical Stages, 2,

2009

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2009) 'And their stories fell apart even as I was telling them': poststructuralist performance and the no-longer-dramatic text. Performance Research, 14(1), pp. 57-64. (doi: 10.1080/13528160903113205)

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2009) Making Trouble. Project Report. AIAA.

2008

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2008) Beyond cynicism: the sceptical imperative and (future) contemporary performance. Contemporary Theatre Review, 18(3), pp. 355-369.

2007

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2007) Point Blank: Nothing to Declare, Operation Wonderland, and Roses and Morphine. Intellect: Bristol. ISBN 9781841501697

2006

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2006) A new tremendous aristocracy: tragedy and the meta-tragic in Barker's theatre of catastrophe. In: Gritzner, Karoline and Rabey, David Ian (eds.) Theatre of Catastrophe: New Essays on Howard Barker. Oberon: London. ISBN 9781840026726

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 and Jackson, Steven (2006) Innocent tourists? Neo-colonialist narratives in contemporary performance. Contemporary Theatre Review, 16(1), pp. 23-30. (doi: 10.1080/10486800500450940)

2005

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2005) Roses & Morphine. [Performance]

2004

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2004) English theatre in the 1990s and beyond. In: Kershaw, Baz (ed.) Cambridge History of British Theatre, Volume 3. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, pp. 498-512. ISBN 9780521651325 (doi: 10.1017/CHOL9780521651325.024)

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2004) Operation Wonderland. [Performance]

2002

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 and Jackson, Steven (2002) Accessibility. In: Arrowsmith, Keith (ed.) The Methuen Amateur Theatre Handbook. Methuen: London, pp. 186-196. ISBN 9780413755704

2001

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2001) Howard Barker. In: Bull, John (ed.) British and Irish dramatists since World War II: Second Series. Series: Dictionary of literary biography, 233. Gale Group: Detroit, pp. 9-21. ISBN 9780787646509

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2001) Nothing to Declare. [Performance]

2000

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (2000) The politics of catastrophe: confrontation or confirmation in Howard Barker's theatre. Modern Drama, 43(1), pp. 66-77. (doi: 10.1353/mdr.2000.0052)

1999

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (1999) Transgressing bounaries: postmodern performance and the tourist trap. TDR, 43(T162), pp. 136-149. (doi: 10.1162/105420499760265244)

1995

Tomlin, Liz ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0465-2722 (1995) Building a Barker character: a methodology from the last supper. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 12(1), pp. 47-53.

This list was generated on Fri Jan 30 18:13:52 2026 GMT.