Bryce Lease
Board Member
Bryce Lease is a Reader in Theatre and Performance Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. His writings on contemporary international performance have been published in numerous journals, including The Drama Review (TDR), Contemporary Theatre Review (CTR), Theatre Research International (TRI), Theatre Journal, European Stages and New Theatre Quarterly (NTQ).
His research has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Newton Fund, the British Academy, the Standing Conference of University Drama Departments (SCUDD) and the Brown International Advanced Research Institute (BIARI). He is Co-Editor of Contemporary Theatre Review, a founding member of the Executive Committee for EASTAP (European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance), an advisory board member for European Stages, and a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College. At RHUL, he developed the MA Theatre Directing with Katie Mitchell.
Overarching themes that frame his research interests are the interconnections between cultural memory, difficult histories, politics, nascent democracies, nationalism, counterpublics, gender, sexuality and cultural geography.
Bryce has published numerous articles on Polish theatre and a monograph, After ’89: Polish Theatre and the Political, which interrogates the rebirth of the theatre as a site of public intervention and social criticism since the establishment of pluralistic democracy. Two further edited collections on European theatre include Contemporary European Playwrights (Routledge) with Maria Delgado and Dan Rebellato and A History of Polish Theatre (Cambridge University Press) with Katarzyna Fazan and Michal Kobialka.
From 2018-2021, Bryce is the PI on the AHRC-funded project ‘Staging Difficult Pasts: Of Narratives, Objects and Public Memory’ (stagingdifficultpasts.org). This project examines how theatres and museums are currently shaping public memory of difficult pasts through their staging of narratives and objects.
Carolina Ortega
Board Member
Carolina Ortega is a Venezuelan performance maker and curator. She studied Theatre Direction and Dramaturgy ‘MA Text & Performance’ at RADA, London, and Documentary and Biographic Theatre Direction and Dramaturgy at Universität der Künste, Berlin.
She worked as curator for CASA Latin American Theatre Festival between 2009-12, and Curating Producer at the Bush Theatre, London in 2012. She was co-artistic director of FLIGHT OF THE ESCALES between 2013-2018, and since then runs her own theatre company, TUCAN RIOT.
She is currently working with Aurora Nova as a dramaturg/agent and Sustainability consultant. Together with Heleen De Boever they created the Sustainability Lab: curating webinars and a toolbox to help guide artists, presenters and agents towards more sustainable touring options.
Photo Credit: Maximiliane Wittek