Martin Young

Martin teaches on the Drama course, focusing on design and technical theatre.

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Email: [email protected]

Background

Martin began teaching at Anglia Ruskin in 2019, having previously taught at Queen Mary University of London. He has also worked for more than a decade in the theatre industry as a designer, technician and stage manager. This has included working on large scale productions, touring shows, festivals, site specific performance, cabaret, live art, comedy, and facilitating community, amateur, and youth work.

Much of Martin’s research and writing is about backstage activity and the organisation of the theatre as an industrial workplace, with a special interest in labour practices, logistical organisation, and economics. With colleagues from multiple institutions he is part of the Performance and Political Economy Research Group.

Research interests

• Lighting, sound, and stage management
• Labour in the theatre industry
• The political economy of performance
• Bertolt Brecht
• Shakespeare & Early Modern theatre

Teaching

Martin currently teaches on the following modules:

• Production Skills
• Theatre Analysis
• Making Performance
• Scenes and Shorts
• Festival of Performance
• Major Project

Qualifications

• MA Shakespeare Studies, The Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham)
• BA Drama Studies, De Montfort University

Selected recent publications

Young, M., 2022, Lighting Applause. In Reason, M., Conner, L., Johanson, K. and Walmsley, B. eds. 2022. The Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts. Oxfordshire: Taylor and Francis. (forthcoming)

Blackwell-Pal, B., Boyle, S., Dilks, A., Mader McGuinness, C., Mckeon, O., Moravec, L., Simari, A., Unger, C. and Young, M., 2021. Marxist Keywords for Performance. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. 36(1). (forthcoming)

Young, M., 2020. Stage Managing Wasted Time: The Temporality of the Theatrical Workplace. Shakespeare Bulletin. 38(1), p.35-56.

Young, M. 2020. Work|Strike|Dance: The Paris Opera Ballet and the 2019 Pensions Dispute. Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performing Arts. 14(1), p.131-138.

Young, M. 2018. Abnormal Personages and Substantial Lumps: Theatre's Dialectic of Fairy Magic and Human Work. Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performing Arts. 12(2), p.18-33.

Recent presentations and conferences

'There Are Plenty of Businesses Like Show Business'. Quorum. Queen Mary University of London, 2021.

'Backstage Labour'. Historical Materialism. Online, 2020.

'Bread and Theatre: Price-Riots and Commodification'. London Theatre Seminar. Senate House, 2018.