Dr Bryan Brown

I am a specialist in performer training and collaboration with a primary focus on laboratory studies. I did my undergraduate degree at the New School for Social Research where I was taught by a heady and healthy mix of former Yale MFA graduates and existing faculty from NYU's Experimental Theatre Wing. Accepted into the prestigious MFA Dramaturgy program of Columbia University, I decided instead to cut my teeth in the experimental theatre and the independent film worlds of New York City. Working in every area from production assistant to dramaturg to actor to producer, I relished in the joy of ensemble-based film and theatre-making. While in NYC, I trained extensively with Stephen Wangh, Raina von Waldenburg and others in an American approach to the Polish Laboratory Theatre's psychophysical training which incorporated somatic and Overlie-based Viewpoints work. I then continued my training at RADA and in Poland with post-Grotowski practitioners from Singapore, Slovakia, Ukraine, Russia, and Poland.

I joined the staff at Exeter from Los Angeles where, together with Olya Petrakova, I spent nearly a decade developing a performance incubation house, Schkapf. While nurturing multiple performance related companies and festivals, Schkapf's central mission was to develop a deeper understanding of the essential role of artistic and cultural venues in neighborhood cohesion and their necessity in civic planning. We continued this work in Exeter with the creation of the cultural laboratory, Maketank, which supported and mentored interdisciplinary artist and community-initiatives with the aim of developing cultural citizenship.

I received my PhD from the University of Leeds. My thesis and its subsequent monograph A History of the Theatre Laboratory has been called “the first honest effort in clearly defining the phenomenon of the [theatre] laboratory, creating the history of the theatre laboratory, and relating it to other arts, and to science”. From this work, I have been a collaborator with the Laboratory Theatre Network organised by the Centre for Performance Research, and funded by the Leverhulme Trust. And alongside writing my thesis, I worked as dramaturg and organisational consultant for the international physical theatre laboratory Studio Matejka and on the production of O Réjane with UNESCO-recognized Awake Projects.

I was the editorial assistant to Theatre, Dance and Performance Training when originated in 2009 and later helped create and evolve the journal's blog. I continue to serve the journal as an Associate Editor.

Research supervision:

I am always keen to supervise new research projects in my areas of specialty (see research interests), and particularly invite proposals for practice research that expands understandings of training for performance and/or ensemble/collective creation processes, develops ideas of the cultural laboratory through applications of placemaking, emergent thinking and specific communities, contributes to conceptions of ecological imaginaries or the ecological thought, or engages with magic and/or esotericism, imagination and performance. I would also welcome historical projects on pedagogies for performance training or projects focused on training places, such as Dartington, the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Hellerau, Institute of Applied Theatre Studies Geissen, Lecoq, Black Mountain College, etc. Interested applicants might wish to send me a 500-1000 word outline and CV as a starting point for discussion.