Dr Erin Walcon (She/her)

Erin serves as a Lecturer in Applied & Educational Theatre, and as the convenor of the MA Applied Theatre pathway. She is also Co-Director of Doorstep Arts in Torbay: a grassroots organisation providing sustainable long-term participatory arts engagement opportunities for children and young people in an area of statistically low socio-economic status. Doorstep Arts works in collaboration with Battersea Arts Centre and 8 regions across the UK as part of the Collaborative Touring Network (2013-2024), building connections between outstanding touring performance and ongoing participatory work at various doorstep sites across Torbay.

Her 2013 PhD, titled Vital Spaces/Vital Signs: Young People, Performance, Identity and Dialogue, examined the ways in which devised theatre practice with young people aged 13-19 creates pedagogically rich space for dialogue about identity and social change. From 2013-2015, Erin worked on the AHRC-funded Amateur Dramatics: Crafting Communities in Time and Space as a postdoctoral research fellow. This research was led by Jane Milling (Exeter), Helen Nicholson (Royal Holloway) and Nadine Holdsworth (Warwick) and was the first major study to seriously consider the social and cultural dimensions of amateur dramatics. From 2016-2021, she also served as the drama advisor for the MA in Creative Arts in Education, within the Graduate School of Education on the St Lukes campus.

Erin currently serves as a board member for Theatre Alibi, helping to host their Getting Through the Cracks symposium series in 2020-21. She also serves on the Advisory Board for Beyond Face and the Cultural Learning Alliance.

Erin's research interests include: dialogic theatre, participatory arts, social justice, community engagement, critical pedagogy, and theatre in education. As a practitioner, Erin facilitates and directs devised theatre, using creative writing, physical techniques, dance and original music to create new works with young people.

She writes and publishes in open-access and public-friendly formats which aim to have a non-academic audience and readership, primarily using the Doorstep Arts blog as a primary space for reflection, sharing practice, and opening up dialogue about key areas of concern.