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Dr Antje Diedrich

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Dr Antje Diedrich, Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Course Leader for BA English and Theatre

Dr Antje Diedrich

I studied Kulturpädagogik (Arts Education) at the University of Hildesheim in Germany, specialising in literature, theatre and music, before moving to the UK and completing an MA in Theatre Studies at the University of Leeds and a PhD in Drama at Liverpool John Moores University.

I worked as a Lecturer in European Theatre Arts at Rose Bruford College before joining the University of Bedfordshire as a Senior Lecturer in Theatre in January 2007.

Teaching role

I teach across three undergraduate courses: the BA in Theatre and Professional Practice, the BA in Performing Arts and the BA in English Studies, focusing on actor training, devising, drama and performance analysis, as well as Elizabethan and Jacobean drama and drama of the 19th and 20th century. In addition, I co-supervise a number of postgraduate students in Reflective Practice in collaboration with Prof. Chris Johns from the Faculty of Health and Social Science.

Research interests

I am very much interested in actor training: the connection between body, voice and mind, and the actor’s creativity. I am keen on developing long-term research in this area, particularly into ‘deep training’.

For my PhD, I researched the work of the German-Jewish playwright and director George Tabori, precisely because his approach to the creative process is very actor-centred.

During my PhD studies I also started training in the Suzuki Actors Training Method with The Suzuki Company of Toga (Japan), the beginning of a fascinating long-term journey in this demanding and complex form of actor training. I continued training with Frank Theatre and have been able to perform with them during their stays in Europe. I also studied Viewpoints and composition with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company during one of their summer intensives at Saratoga Springs.

I am also undertaking research into the work of playwright Sarah Kane, and into the use of performance in reflective practice. I am a member of the University’s Reflective Practice Forum

Recent research outputs

  • Nunes-Tucker, A, Price, A., Diedrich, A. (2009) “Reflecting on Performance” in Johns, C. (ed.) Guided Reflection. London: Blackwell. [to be published in 2010]
  • Workshop Presentation: “The Art of Being: The Suzuki Actors Training Method and Frank Suzuki Performance Aesthetics”, International Conference Performing Arts Training Today, International University Global Theatre Experience (IUGTE), Leitring, Austria, April 2010.
  • “Performance as Rehearsal: George Tabori’s Staging of Waiting for Godot and Endgame”, Historicising Beckett / Issues of Performance – Beckett dans l’histoire / En jouant Beckett. Samuel Beckett Today / Samuel Beckett Aujourd’hui, Vol.15 (2005), 147-160.
  • “‘Talent is the ability to be in the present’: Gestalt Therapy and George Tabori’s Early Theatre Practice”, in New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 4 (November 2002), 375-391.
  • “George Tabori”, in J. Bull (ed.), British and Irish Dramatists Since World War II, Vol. 3, Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 245 (Columbia: Bruccoli Clark, 2001), 318-330.

Service to the academic / professional community

I co-founded Theatre Training Initiative in 1999, a non-profit organisation dedicated to developing the art of the performer. I was a member of their steering committee, teaching and organising theatre classes and workshops and am currently a member of the Advisory Board.

Contact details:

E: antje.diedrich@beds.ac.uk
T: 01234 793103

Bedfordshire University

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