Prof Maria Delgado

BA, MA, PhD, MAE, SFHEA, FRSA
Job title
Vice Principal (Research and Knowledge Exchange)
Maria Delgado
Orcid ID
0000-0002-9237-6923
Social media
Institutional Repository

Profile

I am an academic, critic and curator whose work in the area of Spanish-language and European theatres and Spanish-language film has been published in eight languages.

I grew up in the UK as the daughter of Spanish refugees. I first became interested in theatre and film at my comprehensive school and went on to study at the Universities of Wales, Leeds and Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. I taught previously at Queen Mary University of London (where I was a founder member of the Drama department), Hull University and Manchester Metropolitan University. I have had visiting professorships, fellowships and residences at the Universities of Santiago de Compostela, Queensland, Stockholm, Virginia and UC-Davis, and have given over 80 lectures at universities and cultural institutions across Europe, Asia, North and South America and Africa. Conference keynotes include: the International Federation for Theatre Research (2013), Women in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies (2014), the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland (2015), the Anglo-Catalan Society (2015), ‘Performance and Culture: Cities, Technologies, Embodiments’ at the University of Malta (2018) and the Iberian Theatre and Performance Network’s Theaters of Marginality at the University of Massachusetts (2018). I am currently co-investigator of an AHRC-funded project (2018-21), ‘Staging Difficult Pasts’ with Dr. Bryce Lease and Professor Michal Kobialka and serve on the Executive Committee of the International Federation for Theatre Research.

I have a longstanding interest in the practices and politics of editing and have been Co-editor of Contemporary Theatre Review since 2001. Ongoing editorial work includes co-editorship of two book series for Manchester University Press and Cambridge University Press and advisory/editorial positions on journals including European Stages, Episkenion, Don Galán, Littera Aperta, and Talía.

My wider experience of research management and peer review involves membership of the Leverhulme Trust’s Advisory Panel, HEFCE’s Strategic Advisory Committee for Research and Knowledge Exchange (2015-17), HEFCE’s KE Framework Steering Group (2017-18), and the founding Council of Research England (2018-20). I have served on a range of AHRC committees and panels, including its BGP2 Expressions of Interest and Moderating Panels (2012-13) and its Strategic Reviewers’ Group (2011-13, 2017-22), its DTP Moderating Panel (2018), and its ‘Where Next?’ Panel (Chair, 2020), and undertaken overseas consultancy work and assessment (e.g., European Science Foundation, Portuguese Scientific Foundation, Australian Research Council’s ERA, 2020 Hong Kong RAE). I was a member of the panel for Drama, Dance and the Performing Arts for the Research Assessment Framework [RAE2008] and chaired the sub-panel for Music, Drama, Dance and the Performing Arts (35) for the Research Excellence Framework’s REF2014. I was Chair of the sub-panel for Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies (33) and Deputy Chair of Main Panel D for REF2021. I am currently a member of the Jisc/Elsevier Open Science Forum, Jisc’s Research Strategy Forum and its Open Research Hub Steering Group, and also a member of UKRI’s Committee on Research Integrity (CORI).

In 2003 I was made a Commander of the Order of Isabel la Católica for my academic and curatorial work on Spanish culture; in 2017 I was awarded the Cross of the Order of Alfonso X the Wise for my contribution to education and culture, and in 2018 I was selected one of the University of London’s 150 ‘Leading Women’ in celebration of 150 years of women in UK higher education. Other awards include: Premi Fundació Ramon Llull per la promoció de la cultura catalana (2018), the TaPRA Research Prize for Editing (2017), the QMUL Drapers Award for the Development of Teaching and Learning (2003), the Premi Joan Centrós for best scholarly work published on Catalan-language culture (2008), and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Excellence in Editing and Career Achievement in Academic Theatre Awards (2013, 2020). I hold an Honorary Fellowship at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London and Honorary Life Memberships of the Standing Committee of University Drama Departments [SCUDD] and the Theatre and Performance Research Association [TaPRA]. In 2015 I was elected a Member of the Academia Europaea.

Areas of Expertise

  • Twentieth- and Twenty-first-century Spanish theatre, performance and film
  • Directors’ theatre
  • Intercultural and transcultural performance (with an emphasis on the Spanish-speaking world)
  • Performance and film analysis
  • Argentine theatre and film
  • Cultures of memory

PhD Supervision

To date, I have supervised over 20 PhD thesis to completion and externally examined 30 more in areas including Spanish and Latin American theatre, film and theatre festivals, applied theatre, culture and heritage in Spain, archives of memory and performance, the films of Pedro Almodóvar, queer politics and the work of Federico García Lorca, translation and performance, contemporary writing and performance in Europe, actor training, gender and performance, and rehearsal methodologies. I am currently supervising in areas including transnational theatres, theatre criticism, archives and cultural history, and cultural histories of conflicts in the Spanish and Balkan Civil Wars. I interested in supervising doctoral projects in areas related to my current research interests and broader expertise.

Key Publications

2020. Contemporary European Playwrights, co-edited with Bryce Lease and Dan Rebellato (Abingdon: Routledge).

2020. Contemporary European Theatre Directors, co-edited with Dan Rebellato, revised 2nd edition (Abingdon: Routledge).

2020. ‘Ways of remembering Las Malvinas/The Falklands’ in Lola Arias: Re-enacting Life, ed. Jean Graham-Jones (Aberystwyth: Performance Research Books), pp. 294-301.

2018. ‘Civility, Empathy, Democracy and Memory: Exploring the “we” in compromised times’Performance Research, 28.3, 328-36, DOI: 10.1080/13528165.2018.1525216

2018. ‘Disappearing Acts:  On Analysing Creative Practice in Spain’Hispanic Research Journal, 19.2, 196-213, DOI: 10.1080/14682737.2018.1444428

2017. “Otro” teatro Español: Supresión e inscripción en la escena Española de los siglos XX y XXIMadrid/Frankfurt. Iberoamericana, Vervuert.

2017. A Companion to Latin American Cinemaco-edited with Stephen Hart and Randal Johnson (Oxford: Blackwell-Wiley).

Los amantes pasajeros/I’m So excited! (2013): “performing” la crisis’, in Performance and Spanish Film, ed by D. Albritton, A Melero and T. Whittaker (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), pp. 252-26.

2015. ‘Memory, Silence and Democracy in Spain: Federico García Lorca, the Spanish Civil War and the Law of Historical Memory’, Theatre Journal, 67.

2015. ‘Arts and Humanities Research Evaluation: No Metrics Please, just Data’, (co-authored with Mike Thelwell), Journal of Documentation, 71.4, 817-33.

2013. Spanish Cinema 1973-2010: Auteurism, Politics, Landscape and Memory, co-edited with Robin Fiddian (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

2012. A History of Theatre in Spain, co-edited with David T. Gies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

2008. Federico García Lorca (London: Routledge).

2003. ‘Other’ Spanish Theatres: Erasure and Inscription on the Twentieth-Century Spanish Stage (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

2002. Theatre in crisis?: Performance Manifestos for a New Century, co-edited with Caridad Svich (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

2002. The Paris Jigsaw: Internationalism and the City’s Stages, co-edited with David Bradby (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

1996. In Contact with the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatreco-edited with Paul Heritage (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

External Practice

My work with the creative industries involves includes reviewing, programming and curatorial work in film, translation for the stage, theatre criticism and broadcasting, public lectures and interviews, and programme notes for film, theatre and opera.

My programming and consultancy work in film includes a position as programme advisor with the BFI London Film Festival, responsible for the selection and presentation of Spanish and Latin American films. I have conducted over 280 interviews, masterclasses and screentalks with directors, producers and actors including Javier Bardem, Daniel Burman, Alfonso Cuarón, Penélope Cruz, Benicio del Toro, Michael FrancoAlejandro González Iñárritu, Sebastián Lelio,  Diego Luna, Lucrecia Martel, Julio Medem, Ventura Pons, Carlos Saura, Albert Serra, and Pablo Trapero. My many public conversations with Pedro Almodóvar include a Guardian/NFT interview with Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz, the hosting of Almodóvar’s 2012 David Lean Lecture at BAFTA, a BFI Masterclass on Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown in 2015, a career interview for the 2017 Almodóvar season at the BFI and an interview on Pain and Glory in 2019. I currently co-curate Latin America Monthly with Nico Marzano at the ICA and provide advisory work for Frames of Representation and the London Spanish Film Festival.

I have translated the work of a range of dramatists including Susana Torres Molina, Ramón del Valle-Inclan, Mario Benedetti, and Bernard-Marie Koltès. My translations have been produced by (among others) the Vault, Southwark Playhouse (2012), de Singel Theatre, Antwerp (2009); the Avignon Festival (2006); Arcola Theatre, London (2004); the Théâtre de Lorient, Bretagne, France (2002); the Hagley Theatre, New Zealand (2001); 7 Stages, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (2001); the ICA (1992) and Battersea Arts Centre (1990).

My public engagement and broader activities in theatre include membership of the board of the award-winning ATC (Actors Theatre Company), one of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio organisations, including a period as Chair (2009-19), and consultancies on a range of theatre productions in the UK, Spain and Argentina. Projects include Ainadamar directed by Peter Sellars at the Teatro Real Madrid (2012) and The House of Bernarda Alba, directed by Bijan Sheibani at the Almeida Theatre London (2012). I was an Artistic and Quality Assessor for Arts Council England (2012-17). I am a member of the Committee for the International Ibsen Award and served on the International Advisory Board of Schauspiel Stuttgart’s European Drama Award (2020). I have served on juries for Birmingham European Festival, the Lukas: UK Latin Awards, the IndieLisboa Portuguese Film Fund and the BAFICI film festival Buenos Aires.

I have contributed to over 100 radio and television programmes in the UK and Spain. This includes reviews of a range of film and stage work for BBC Radio well as appearances on TV3, RTVE, BBC News 24, Radio Ser, TRT World’s Nexus, and BBC’s The Cinema Show. I am a regular contributor to Sight & Sound and also review work for European Stages, Times Higher Education, and The Theatre Times where I also worked as Executive Director of the International Online Theatre Festival (2020-21).

Register of interest

Member, Board of Governors, The Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Member, Board of Trustees, Actors Touring Company