Research Resources

Research at Rose Bruford College reflects its institutional distinctiveness: vocational, diverse, collaborative and international. Practice-based and scholarly research resulting in a variety of outcomes is complemented by research that informs pedagogy or interfaces with the theatre industry.

Our perspective is international and multicultural with the potential for intercultural performance in both discipline-specific and interdisciplinary contexts. Over the last few years a number of generic themes have emerged within which individual and collaborative projects have developed: new writing, celebratory arts, community arts, location, theatre memory, music theatre, digital arts and knowledge transfer. Inevitably there is overlapping and inter-connection between the projects defined in these areas, but they provide a useful structure within which to shape the research.

For a small specialist institution the College is fortunate in its resources. The facilities - two theatres, two black-box studios, rehearsal and movement rooms, lighting laboratories, scenic workshop, design and exhibition areas, costume production site and wardrobe, and digital arts suite - provide an extensive laboratory for practice-based research. The Clive Barker Library holds a number of special collections: Rose Bruford Archive, John Masefield Collection, Stanislavski Collection, David Bolland Kathakali Archive, and Clive Barker Archive, which serve as a primary source for research as well as useful points of reference. And New Theatre Quarterly is published in association with the College.

Research is promoted and organised by the Research Office and its personnel and disseminated in the College through the Theatre Futures website, annual symposium, annual cultural industries fair, conferences, exhibitions, installations and performances, and outside the College in appropriate venues, forums, and publications.

The Stanislavski Centre at Rose Bruford College is a unique initiative within the UK to create a home for both academic research and practice/performance events based upon the work of Konstantin Stanislavski. The Centre is located within the College’s Learning Resources Centre and is open to researchers upon request.

Performance Prompt is published and maintained by the Research Office at Rose Bruford College. It is a monthly online publication presenting essays, articles and other critical writings by practioners and critics working in the theatre industry today.

The Sidcup Papers are occasional scholarly writings addressing issues of import in a broadly based theatre context.