Associate ProfessorLaura Ginters

Project Opportunities

Title: Theatre and Performance Studies

Summary of opportunity:

The department of Theatre and Performance Studies offers a vibrant, collegial environment for postgraduate research.  Among its substantial assets are the Rex Cramphorn Studio and an audio-visual studio.

* If you are interested in this research opportunity, please see the profiles of the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies staff and contact the Postgraduate Co-ordinator, Associate Professor Glen McGillivray (glen.mcgillivray@sydney.edu.au) directly to discuss your proposed project.

Opportunity synopsis:

Theatre and Performance Studies focuses on the broad spectrum of performance practices, including theatre, spectacle, dance and ritual.  It draws on a range of disciplines including anthropology, history, sociology, semiotics, architecture,and theatre studies in order to analyse, theorise and understand performance, in all its variety, as complex cultural process. Some graduates move into professional theatre and dance, while others adapt their acquired expertise to inform their careers in a range of sectors such as law, medicine, PR, film and television, arts policy and management or event management.

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Project Opportunities

Title: Dramaturgy and translation

Summary of opportunity:

I am an interdisciplinary scholar with a background in both Theatre and Performance Studies and Germanic Studies. In my work I recuperate, document and analyse the circumstances and nature of the creation, performance and reception of live performance, situating it within its social, cultural and historical contexts, and demonstrating how theatre both contributes to the development of national identities, and is emblematic of it. The focus of my research is in several, intersecting, mutually informing areas. These include: Rehearsal Studies (historical and contemporary); Australian theatre history; the interrogation of traditional binaries in theatre (especially popular vs “high” culture and professional vs amateur); and the role of women in theatre.

Opportunity synopsis:

Research interests

• Australian theatre history
• Women in theatre
• Dramaturgy
• Historical and contemporary rehearsal practices
• German theatre history
• Writing for performance, especially Australian playwrights

Supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective HDR students with topics related to: dramaturgy and translation; Australian theatre history (including student and amateur theatre; 19th and early 20th century female theatre makers); Australian playwrights; feminist approaches/women in theatre; German theatre and theatre history (especially Büchner, Brecht and theatre practice in the 18-19thC); law and performance; production histories; rehearsal studies/history of rehearsal.

----------Current Research Projects----------

The Diary of Ernestine Engels: A New Digital Humanities Edition

Ernestine Engels was an actress at Goethe’s famous Court Theatre in Weimar from 1805 until her death in 1845.The diary she wrote in the first half of 1816 has never been published (in full in German; at all in English) but offers rich insights into the daily life and working practices of an actress at a time when significant changes in theatre practice (ultimately leading to the rise of the modern director) were being implemented.

In Stage 1 of this project the diary will be digitized, transcribed and translated into English.

In subsequent stages of the project, an international collaboration is proposed between the Goethe Museum Düsseldorf (where the diary is held), Goethehaus Frankfurt, Goethe Nationalmuseum/Klassik Stiftung Weimar, to create a full, annotated and edited digital humanities edition of the diary, including links to documents, images and other objects from their collections, ultimately presenting an accessible, engaging and richly illustrated “snapshot” of life in Weimar in 1816.

Rehearsal in Europe 1550-1880: Performance Preparation before the Director

This ARC-funded project (with Associate Professor Tim Fitzpatrick, Dr John Golder and Professor Tiffany Stern) investigates rehearsal processes in European theatre before the advent of the director in the nineteenth century, focussing on England, Italy, France and Germany. This contrastive analysis of historical rehearsal practice will constitute a significant rethinking of how and why European theatre practice developed as it did before the arrival of the figure of the independent director. What did rehearsal consist of, how did it develop in relation to performance, and how did collaborative processes evolve to create a space for the director?

Rex Cramphorn: Performance Histories

Rex Cramphorn was a highly original director of Shakespeare, French classical and contemporary Australian theatre. His untimely death at the age of 50 in 1991 cut short a significant artistic career. The Rex Cramphorn Committee has commissioned research for a book length study of Cramphorn’s work, both with the innovative companies he founded in the 1970s, and his later work, including his 5-year Resident Directorship of Melbourne’s Playbox Theatre. This will complement the collected edition of his writings, compiled and edited by Dr Ian Maxwell.