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Dr Glen McGillivray

BA (Honours) Flinders' University 1988
PhD University of Sydney 2004

Lecturer
S224, John Woolley Building A20

+61 2 9351 6833

Glen McGillivray graduated with honours in theatre direction from the Flinders’ University Drama Centre and has worked professionally in theatre for over fifteen years. He was the Artistic Director of Theatre of Desire, a contemporary performance company producing original material, which included: Rites of Memory and Desire (1993-1996), The Frankenstein Twist (1995) and Customs (1998), which the company commissioned from Perth-based writer Josephine Wilson. Glen has also been the Artistic Director of ATYP, an Associate Director and dramaturg for the State Theatre Company of South Australia and has worked extensively as a freelance director. In addition to his work as a director, Glen has had a long association with the development of new writing for the theatre. In 2002, he was the Australia Council funded dramaturg at the Banff PlayRites colony in Alberta, Canada and he worked as a script assessor for the Australian National Playwrights’ Centre. Glen has also taught acting at the Actors’ Centre Australia and run classes for the NIDA open program, the NSW Conservatorium of Music and the Actors’ College of Theatre and Television

Research areas

  • Theatricality and theatrical metaphor
  • 20th Century European theatre
  • Acting, directing and dramaturgy

Current Projects

2009-2011 AusStage: Gateway to Australian live performance, phase 4. This project explores the use of network analysis to develop new kinds of research around lines of artistic contact, influence and cross-fertilisation; organisational cycles of growth, consolidation and release; patterns in career pathways and professional development; and emerging clusters of collaborative creativity suitable for strategic investment.

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Selected publications

Book

  • Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia: Hidden Archives of Performance
    Brussels: Peter Lang AG, 2011

Articles

  • "‘The Performance Archive: Detritus or Historical Record" in Glen McGillivray (ed.) Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia. Brussels: Peter Lang, AG. 2011: 11-28.
  • "King/Cate: Stardom, Aura and the Stage Figure in the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Richard II" The Drama Review Spring 2010 Vol. 54, Issue 1 (T205)
  • “Pleasure Out of Suffering: Negotiating Material Reality through Fetishism and Disavowal in Food Court.” About Performance #10 2010: 93-106
  • "The Discursive Formation of Theatricality as a Critical Concept" Metaphorik de. 17/2009, link
  • "AusStage: e-Research in the Performing Arts" (with Jonathan Bollen, Neal Harvey, Julie Holledge) Australasian Drama Studies Vol. 54 April 2009: 178-194
  • “Globing the globe: September 11 and theatrical metaphor” Theory and Event Vol. 11, Issue 4 2008 link
  • "The Picturesque World Stage" Performance Research Vol. 13 No.4 2008: 127-139
  • “Still. Not Seen: exploring the artist’s hidden archive”, About Performance #8 Still/Moving: Photography and Live Performance, June 2008: 31-45
  • “Mis-recognised knowledges: national identity and the unreliable narrator in Jack Hibberd’s A Stretch of the Imagination and Josephine Wilson’s The Geography of Haunted Places”, Australasian Drama Studies, Vol. 52, April 2008: 69-84
  • “Faking truth: the 'problem' of 'theatricality'”in Ravi Chaturvedi and Brian Singleton (eds) (2005) Ethnicity and Identity: Global Performance, Rawat Publications: New Delhi, pp 117-129

Areas of Teaching

  • PRFM 3619 Documenting Performance (Semester 1, 2012
  • PRFM4012 Honours Contemporary Performance (Semester 1, 2012)
  • PRFM3606 Approaches to Acting (Semester 2, 2012)
Current PhD Supervision

Christopher Hay ‘Brave Souls Pushing Boundaries: A Study of the NIDA Directing Course and its Graduates’

Peta Downes ‘Artist or Creative Entrepreneur: the Impact of Creative Industries on Australian Theatre Practice’

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Conference Activity

  • 2011, September, (with Chris Hay), ‘Picturing Success: Imaging Collaborative Networks Amongst NIDA Directing Graduates’, Ausstage Symposium, Deakin University
  • 2011, July, ‘Motions of the Mind: Communicating the Passions on the Early Modern Stage’ Australasian Association of Theatre, Drama, and Performance Studies (ADSA), Monash University, Melbourne
  • 2011, June, ‘Motions of the Mind: Communicating the Passions on the Early Modern Stage’ Emotions In The Medieval And Early Modern World, University of Western Australia
  • 2011, February, ‘The Wonderful Scene’: Theatricalising the Unknown in Eighteenth Century Science’ Romantic Studies Association of Australasia, University of Sydney
  • 2010 “The Persistent Essentialism of Theatricality”, Australasian Association of Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies (ADSA), ANU, Canberra
  • 2009 “Theatrum Mundi: the ‘booming’ metaphor” , ADSA, Curtin University, Perth
  • 2008 “The Picturesque World Stage” Australasian Association of Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies (ADSA), University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  • 2007 “Globing the globe: September 11 and theatrical metaphor”Australasian Association of Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies (ADSA), University of Melbourne
  • 2006 “The Discursive Formation of Theatricality as a Critical Concept”, American Comparative Literatures Association conference, Princeton University, Princeton, USA
  • 2005 “Self Fashioning and Fashioning the Self: the Renaissance Crisis of Interiority”, ADSA Conference, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga
  • 2003 “’Theatricality’: Examining the Genealogical and Discursive Issues of a Critical term”, ADSA Conference, Australian Catholic University, Brisbane
  • “Faking truth: the 'problem' of 'theatricality'”, International Federation of Theatre Research Conference (IFTR), Jaipur, India
  • 2002 “The Emperor’s New Clothes: Reinventing ‘Theatricality’ as ‘Performance’”, International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 2001 “Evoking the Theatrical Fetish: The Function of Disavowal and Fetishism in Trans-acting the ‘Real’ in Performance”, ADSA Conference, University of NSW, Sydney
  • 2000 “’Do Not Forget You Are Mortal!’ The Suppression of Theatricality in the Staging of State Spectacles”, ADSA Conference, University of Newcastle, Newcastle
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Other Professional Contributions

2011 Vice-President, Australasian Association of Theatre, Drama, and Performance Studies (ADSA)
2011 Chair, youMove Dance Co

Selected Creative Works

  • 2005 Blue by PJ Williams, Director, Short and Sweet Festival, Seymour Centre, Sydney
  • 2004 Tea by Angus Strachan, Director, Best of Short and Sweet Tour, Melbourne Arts Centre, Sydney Opera House, Parramatta Riverside Theatres (original performance as part of Short and Sweet Festival, Seymour Centre)
  • 2002 Leda, a dance-theatre work by Kay Armstrong, Performance Dramaturg
  • 1999 The White Project, devised project with Shabnam Hameed, Director/Facilitator, University of Western Sydney
  • 1998 Customs, Josephine Wilson, Director/Dramaturg, Theatre of Desire, Sidetrack Theatre
  • 1997 The Glasses of Hector Margolez, devised project from a concept by Chris Strickland, Director/Dramaturg, Theatre of Desire, The Performance Space
  • 1996 Rites of Memory and Desire, devised project, Director/Dramaturg, Theatre of Desire, Adelaide Fringe Festival
  • 1995 The Frankenstein Twist, devised project, Director/Dramaturg, Theatre of Desire, Belvoir St Upstairs
    Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare, Director, Theatre of Desire, Pilgrim Theatre
  • 1994 Salacious, Director/Dramaturg, Director, Queer Arts for Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival, The Performance Space
  • Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare, Director, Theatre of Desire, Shakespeare-by-the-Pool, Victoria Park
  • 1993 Twelfth Night, Shakespeare, Director, Theatre of Desire, Shakespeare-by-the-Pool, Victoria Park
  • 1992 As You Like It, Shakespeare, Director, Theatre of Desire, Shakespeare-by-the-Pool, Victoria Park
  • White Paper Flowers, Mary Hickson, Director/Dramaturg, Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), The Performance Space
  • 1991 Frankenstein’s Children, David Carlin, Director, ATYP, Parade Theatre
    New Vaudeville, Ray Crowe et. Al, Director, Adelaide Festival Centre Trust
  • 1990 ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore, John Ford, Director, DIY Theatre, the Red Shed
    Happy Rest, Marion Hoenig, Director/Dramaturg, State Theatre Co. of South Australia
  • Swimmers, Nick Gill, Director/Dramaturg, AIDS Council of South Australia
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