My research interests centre on performance practice, especially directing, acting (and how these are brought together through rehearsal), devising and performer training. My recent research has focussed on Odin Teatret and now especially concerns contemporary directing and performance-making practices.

I have recently published a monograph on contemporary directing, The Director and Directing: Craft, Process and Aesthetic in Contemporary Theatre (Palgrave Macmillan).

My ongoing practice as research activities includes work with The Bone Ensemble, where I am co-artistic director. Recently, the company has created family performances about environmental themes - see https://theatre-environment.bham.ac.uk/. This work has regularly been funded by Arts Council England, the University of Birmingham, several Trusts, and commissioning partners. The company is now creating community performance work.

Before joining the department at Birmingham, I was a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at University College Cork, Ireland, and a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Hull.

Alongside my academic work, I have directed and led projects internationally in a variety of situations and settings, including professional productions and tours, in drama schools and universities, in the community and with my own company.

I am a member of the 'scientific committee' of the Journal of Theatre Anthropology, and the 'Ship of Fools' scholars-in-residence initiative at the Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium; and part of the FRSA100 project.