Prof Sally Mackey

BA, PGCE, MA, PhD, FRSA, FHEA
Job title
Professor Emerita of the University of London
Sally Mackey
Orcid ID
0000-0003-2289-5338
Institutional Repository

Profile

I recently retired from Central after nearly 32 years. Having been made Professor Emerita, I retain many links with Central.

After completing a BA in English and Drama at Exeter University and a PGCE at Goldsmiths, I taught in schools (four) for several years. My MA in Arts Education and Cultural Studies and PhD are from Warwick University. I started teaching at Central in 1992 as a drama education specialist and became Professor in Applied Theatre and Performance. A key role at Central from 2006 until 2016 was as part of the senior academic management team, with responsibility for the taught courses, including quality, development and admissions. Externally, I have advised on curriculum change, practice as research and examined BA and MA courses in several universities.

I founded ‘applied theatre’ at Central and research predominantly in this field. I was principal applicant for Leverhulme Trust Arts Training Scholarships 2007-2023, bringing in well over £1 million for, predominantly, Central’s BA and MA applied theatre students to undertake outreach placements globally. A member of the Editorial Board of RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, I peer reviewed for several international academic journals.

As a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council for 12 years, I sat on commissioning panels:  Landscape and Environment (2005-2006), Researching Environmental Change (2010), Connected Communities (2014) and a cross-research council panel (RCUK) for Valuing Nature: Health and Wellbeing (2016). Having been awarded an AHRC grant of £130,000 (2011-2014), I led a further AHRC funded project for follow-on impact and engagement, ‘Performing Local Places’ (c. £100,000, 2016-2017) and was the co-investigator on ‘Performing Abergavenny’ (2013-2014), an AHRC funded research project for the Connected Communities theme. All of these projects were undertaken with participant groups as practice research, interrogating ‘performing’ places and reconsidering new, embedded or temporary locatedness. Invited to speak about this work internationally, including Canada, Brussels and South Africa, I gave a keynote at TaPRA in 2017 following the 2016 David Bradby TaPRA Award for Research in International Theatre and Performance. Subsequently, I worked with Bexley Council on a £176,000 award for ‘Performing Places Bexley’ (2017-2020).

Launched in 2020, I co-edit a book series with Professor Deirdre Heddon, Performing Landscapes, bringing together thinking around ecology, performance and landscape figures - a current and critical field of debate in theatre and performance research and practice.

I am honoured that Central, on my retirement, has created the Sally Mackey Bursary fund for applied theatre students.

Areas of Expertise

  • Applied and socially engaged theatre
  • Performance of place
  • Practice research
  • Ecological performance
  • Landscape theatre
  • Drama Education

PhD Supervision

 I supervised 4 PhD theses to completion and externally examined 15 more in areas including theatre and ecology, applied theatre, performance and urban space, performance of place, gendered performance. I am no longer taking PhD candidates because of retiring.

Key Publications

2024. Performing Homescapes. Co-edited with Adelina Ong. London: Palgrave Macmillan. (Forthcoming).

2020. ‘A Short Disquisition on Anatopia: Rethinking place and its performance’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 30.4: 546-558, DOI: 10.1080/10486801.2020.1812592

2016. ‘Performing Location: Place and applied theatre’ in Critical Perspectives on Applied Theatre. eds. Jenny Hughes, J. and Helen Nicholson, H. (Cambridge University Press), pp.106-126.

2016. ‘Applied theatre practice as research: polyphonic conversations’, RiDE: the Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 21.4, 478-491, DOI: 10.1080/13569783.2016.1220250

External Practice

The following practice comprises work arising from several AHRC grants, exploring the performance of place. Visit the Performing Places website for more information.

2018 – 2019. Project lead, Performing Places Bexley, community venues and main street, Bexleyheath, Kent.

2016 - 2017. Principal Investigator, Performing Local Places, Oldham external sites, Camden external sites.

2014. Co-investigator, Performance lead, Performing Abergavenny, Borough Theatre and external sites, Abergavenny, Wales.

2013 - 2014. Principal Investigator, Challenging Place, Half Moon Theatre, London, external sites, Oldham

Register of Interest

Full House Theatre (Charity No. 1165541) – Chair of Board of Trustees

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