Dr Duska Radosavljevic

BA, PhD, PGCHE, FHEA
Job title
Professorial Research Fellow

Profile

I am a Yugoslav-born, British-grown dramaturg, writer, and researcher in contemporary theatre and performance practices.

Since 2002, I have designed and delivered courses in dramaturgy, writing for performance and theatre-making at the universities of Newcastle, Warwick, Bristol and Kent and have given talks and workshops at, among others, Bretton Hall - University of Leeds, Davidson College North Carolina, Moscow Art Theatre School, National University of Singapore, Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts, Babes Bolyai University Cluj, Goldsmiths, Royal Holloway and University of Oxford.

I have worked as the company dramaturg at Northern Stage in Newcastle, and as an education programme manager and practitioner at the Royal Shakespeare Company. As a freelance dramaturg I have been employed by New Writing North, West Yorkshire Playhouse, National Student Drama Festival, DanceCity, Circomedia, Accidental Collective and the Almeida Theatre.

For 13 years I was a member of the Stage Newspaper’s Edinburgh reviewing team and the Edinburgh Acting Excellence Awards judging panel. I have also read for the Bruntwood Playwriting Prize in 2015 and was a member of the judging panel for the John Whiting Award in 2010.

I have served as a peer reviewer for the AHRC, British Academy, Austrian Science Fund, FWO – Research Foundation Flanders, and for Routledge, Palgrave, Methuen, Intellect. I have held editorial roles for the Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance and Contemporary Theatre Review.

Areas of Expertise

  • Dramaturgy

  • Directing

  • Ensemble Theatre

  • Theatre-Making

  • Authorship

  • Theatre Criticism

  • Theatre, Politics and the Balkans

PhD Supervision

To date, I have supervised 3 PhD theses to completion and externally examined 4 more in areas including dramaturgy, playwriting, contemporary British Theatre, stand up comedy, punk and theatre in Eastern Europe. I am currently supervising or interested in supervising doctoral projects in the areas of contemporary theatre and performance, theatre in the Balkans, dramaturgy, criticism and sound.

Key Publications

Books

2023. Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Theatre in the Digital Age (Abingdon/New York: Routledge)

2013. Theatre-Making: Interplay Between Text and Performance in the 21st Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave) [David Bradby TaPRA Research Prize 2015].

Edited Collections

2022. Aural/Oral Dramaturgies [Special Topic], Critical Stages 24, co-edited with Flora Pitrolo, https://www.critical-stages.org/24/aural-oral-dramaturgies-editors-introduction/

2021. Auralia.Space – www.auralia.space, DOI: 10.25389/rcssd.14047157.v1

2018. [Special Issue on Oliver Frljić], Interventions 28:2Contemporary Theatre Review, co-edited with Bryce Lease, https://www.contemporarytheatrereview.org/2018/06/

2016. Theatre Criticism: Changing Landscapes (London: Methuen Bloomsbury).

2013. The Contemporary Ensemble: Interviews with Theatre-Makers, (London: Routledge).

Book Chapters

2020. ‘Biljana Srbljanović and Ivana Sajko: Voice in the Place of Silence’, in Contemporary European Playwrights, edited by Maria Delgado, Bryce Lease and Dan Rebellato, (London: Routledge), pp. 313-33.

2019. ‘The Heterarchical Director: A model of authorship for the 21st century’, in revised anniversary edition of Directors’ Theatre by David Bradby and David Williams, edited by Peter Boenisch and David Williams (London: Macmillan International), pp. 246-67.

2015. ‘Kneehigh Theatre’. In British Theatre Companies: From Fringe to Mainstream, edited by Liz Tomlin (London: Methuen Bloomsbury), pp. 155-78.

2014. ‘Theatre as an Intellectual Concertina: Interview with Simon Stephens’ in Theatre and Adaptation: Return, Rewrite, Repeat, edited by Margherita Laera (London: Methuen Bloomsbury), pp. 255-68.

2014. The Place of a Dramaturg in 21st Century England’ in Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, edited by Magda Romanska (London, New York: Routledge), pp. 40-44.

2014. ‘Towards Performed Dramaturgy’ in New Dramaturgy: International Perspectives, edited by Katalin Trencsenyi and Bernadette Cochrane (London: Methuen Bloomsbury), pp. 68-79.

Articles

2020. ‘Curating the Invisible: An Archive-Embedded Interview with Struan Leslie’, Contemporary Theatre Review, [Special issue on Katie Mitchell edited by Tom Cornford and Caridad Svich], 30:2, 236-244, DOI: 10.1080/10486801.2020.1731489

2016. ‘Reversing the Process: Investigating Multi-Disciplinary Compositional Practices in The Fall of Icarus [2009]’, (co-authored with George Rodosthenous), Theatre Topics, 26: 1 (March), 105-116, DOI 10.1353/tt.2016.0018

2012. ‘Sarah Kane’s Illyria as the land of violent love: a Balkan reading of Blasted’, Contemporary Theatre Review – themed issue ‘South’, Vol. 22 (4), 2012, 499-511, DOI: 10.1080/10486801.2012.718270

External Practice

My practice as a dramaturg is wide-ranging and has included aspects of authorship, consultancy, curation, translation, advocacy, mentoring and, chiefly, collaboration.

Notable recent credits include:

2015. Dramaturg. Oresteia, Almeida/West End, London (Author / Director: Robert Icke)

2015. Writer. (un)decorated, Serbian City Club, London (Director: Maja Milatovic-Ovadia)

2012. Dramaturg. EveryONE is Looking for SomeONE (Accidental Collective)

2011. Dramaturg, Imagining O, University of Kent (Director: Richard Schechner)

In 2014 I set up The Mums and Babies Ensemble with Annie Rigby, Lena Simić and our respective babies, in collaboration with London Bubble. A public engagement project funded by the AHRC, The Mums and Babies Ensemble was a performance/script development process involving multiple audiences as co-authors at GIFT Festival Gateshead, Fun Palaces / Lyric Hammersmith and SPRINT at Camden People’s Theatre. The resulting script was published by The Institute of the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home.

Other recent public engagement activities I initiated include:

2018. STR Edward Gordon Craig Lecture by Oliver Frljić: The Representational Weaknesses of Democracy and Theatre in the Early 21st Century, at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, 28 June 2018.

Robert Icke, A Lecture and Q and A, at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, 2 May 2018.

Theatre, Interactivity, Democracy Symposium at Unicorn Theatre, 22 April 2015 (delivered with Pablo Pakula)

Friday Salon – Lifting the Curtain: On Audience and Authorship at the ICA, 25 October 2015 (delivered with Accidental Collective and Chris Johnston/Argument Room)

Symposium on Eastern European Hamlets at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, 30 January 2013 (with Alexandra Portmann)

I write regularly for The Stage and Exeunt on topics including children’s theatre, dramaturgy and European theatre.

I also contribute as a writer and Regional Managing Editor to The Theatre Times.

Other non-academic publications in recent years include:

2017. Entries on Mike Alfreds and Kneehigh Theatre for DT+ Fundamentals.

2015. ‘1984- Getting to the Heart of the Text’ - Headlong Theatre website

2015. ‘Theatre-Making: The End of Directing as We Know It’. In: Popovici, Iulia, ed. The End of Directing: The Beginning of Theatre-Making and Devising in European Theatre. Tact Editura/ Sibiu Festival.

2015. ‘On the Virtues of “Open Source” Innovation in the Arts’. In: Svich, Caridad, ed. Innovation in Five Acts, TCG, pp. 35-37.

External Examining

2022-ongoing: School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, University College London

2018-2022: MA Dramaturgy and Playwriting, University of Glasgow

2018-2022: MA Theatre and Performance, Queen Mary, University of London

2010-2014:  MA Dramaturgy and Writing for Performance, Goldsmiths College

2009-2013:  BA Drama, University of Portsmouth

Awards

2022. Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy (Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas)

2022. ATHE-ASTR Award for Excellence in Digital Scholarship (Association for Theatre in Higher Education and American Society for Theatre Research)

2015. David Bradby Research Prize (Theatre and Performance Research Association)

2002. Nominated for the Allen Wright Award for Arts Criticism

1998. Sunday Times Harold Hobson Student Drama Critic Award

I have held four AHRC funding awards: Leadership Fellowship (2020-2022), Follow-On funding (2015), Research Network Grant (2013) and Fellowship (2012). I have also successfully applied for Arts Council funding.

Register of Interest

Member of: Dramaturgs’ Network, Society of Authors, International Association of Theatre Critics and Higher Education Academy.

I am an intermittent member of the Directing and Dramaturgy TaPRA Working Group and co-convenor of Translation, Adaptation, Dramaturgy working group at IFTR (2018-2022).

Additionally, I have served on the Board of Trustees for Circomedia, the Executive Committee of the Dramaturgs’ Network and the HE Advisory Board for Digital Theatre Plus.