People_
Associate Professor Glen McGillivray
BA (Honours) Flinders 1988, PhD Sydney 2004
Research Director, Discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies
Phone
+61 2 9351 6833
Address
A20 - John Woolley Building
The University of Sydney
Websites
Glen McGillivray began his career as a professional theatre director and has worked for some of Australia's premiere theatre companies including the State Theatre Company of South Australia and Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP). From 2014-2017 he developed and convened the graduate program in Practice-Based Research at NIDA and was President of the Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies (ADSA)from 2015-2020. He is on editorial boards for the journals Australasian Drama Studies and About Performance.
show more
- performance and emotion
- eighteenth-century acting
- tango
- Theatricality and theatrical metaphor
Areas of Teaching
- PRFM3606 Approaches to Acting
- PRFM2605 Rehearsing Shakespeare
- PRFM1601 Making Theatre: the Work of the Director
Completed Supervisions
- Peta Downes, 2024 PhD, "Independent or Entrepreneur? The Impact of Economic Rationalism on Australian Fringe Theatre Practice"
- Sean O'Riordan, 2024, M. Phil, "Shakespeare is Good for You. 'An Olympic Course in Acting: Shakespearean performance techniquies as training tools in contemporary acting conservatoires
- Julie Lynch, 2018, D. Arts, “Costume’s mirror up to nature: the integral role of costume in scenography”
- Steve Matthews, 2018, D. Arts, “Performing our lives: an investigation of solo autobiographical performance from the performer’s perspective”
- Christopher Hay, 2014, PhD, “Learning to inhabit the chair: knowledge transfer in contemporary Australian director training"
- Michael Kitson (UWS), 2008, PhD “The Sex Pistols and the London mob”
- Natalie Mosco (UWS), 2008, D.Creative Arts “OnCreating A Brush With Georgia O’Keefe”
- Tango and Emotion. I am initiating a new research project that explores the different dimensions of emotion in Argentine tango performance. This work builds on my previous research that explored the emotional interactions between actors and audiences in the eighteenth-century theatre. Using the categories developed by Monique Scheer (2012) (and applied in that research) this project will analyse the interaction between tango dancers in terms of their emotional practices; in particular, how they communicate, regulate, name, and mobilise emotions.
-
Actors, Audiences and Emotions in the Eighteenth-Century examines how audiences and actors emotionally interacted in the English theatre in the middle decades of the century. This period was bookended by two great stars of the century, David Garrick and Sarah Siddons, whose acting is the focus of this study. Drawing on recent scholarship on the history of emotions, it challenges the view that emotional interaction between actors and audiences depends on empathy, or the idea that what an actor feels, an audience must feel too. It analyses how actors emotionally communicated emotions through their voices, faces and gestures, how audiences interpreted these performances and mobilised and regulated their own emotional responses. In the eighteenth-century theatre, audiences carefully appraised how actors used their faces, bodies and voices in relation to accepted conventions, and their appreciation of actors’ performances was closely tied to this. Significantly, the book explores how the theatre space itself mediated behaviours, arguing that the analysis of emotions must
include not only how they are embodied, but also how they are emplaced.
- President,Australasian Association of Theatre, Drama, and Performance Studies (ADSA) (2015-2020)
- Chair, youMove Dance Co (2011-2013)
Editorial Boards
- Member, Editorial Board, Australasian Drama Studies Journal
- Member, Editorial Board, About Performance
| Project title | Research student |
|---|---|
| Radicalising Rape on Stage | Bridget MAC EOCHAGAIN |
| The Rogue Less Travelled: The History of Training Writers at the National Institute of Dramatic Art | Adam MOULDS |
Selected publications
Actors, Audiences, and Emotions in the Eighteenth Century: Communities of Sentiment
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia: Hidden Archives of Performance
(Peter Lang Publishing, 2011)
Publications
Expand all
Books
- McGillivray, G. (2023). Actors, Audiences, and Emotions in the Eighteenth Century: Communities of Sentiment. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
Edited Books
- McGillivray, G. (2011). Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia: Hidden Archives of Performance. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing.
Book Chapters
- McGillivray, G. (2015). Arcadian Scenes: Bougainville, Banks and Theatrical Perception in the South Pacific. In Maryrose Casey (Eds.), Embodying Transformation: Transcultural Performance, (pp. 1-16). Melbourne: Monash University Press.
- McGillivray, G. (2011). Still. Not seen: Photography and the archive under the bed. In McGillivray, Glen (Eds.), Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia: Hidden Archives of Performance, (pp. 173-189). Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing. [More Information]
- McGillivray, G. (2011). The performance archive: Detritus or historical record? In McGillivray, Glen (Eds.), Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia: Hidden Archives of Performance, (pp. 11-28). Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing. [More Information]
show 1 more
Journals
- McGillivray, G. (2025). "A Sense in Silence, and a Will in Thought": Was David Garrick a Proto-Stanislavskian? Stanislavski Studies. [More Information]
- McGillivray, G. (2021). Book review: 'Theatres of Feeling: Affect, Performance, and the Eighteenth-Century Stage' by Jean I. Marsden. Theatre Journal, 72(2), 258-259. [More Information]
- McGillivray, G. (2019). Scaffolded learning: a model of historically informed performance practice and action research in Rehearsing Shakespeare. Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 10(1), 85-96. [More Information]
show 14 more
Live Theatre
- McGillivray, G. (2005). Blue by PJ Williams [Director]. Seymour Centre, Sydney, Australia.
- McGillivray, G. (2004). Tea by Angus Strachan [Director]. Melbourne Arts Centre, Sydney Opera House, Parramatta Riverside Theatre, Australia, Australia.
- McGillivray, G. (2002). Leda, a dance-theatre work by Kay Armstrong [Performance Dramaturg]. Australia.
show 3 more
Magazine / Newspaper Articles
- McGillivray, G. (2022). Review: Mahagonny Songspiel and Die sieben Todsunden. Kurt Weill Newsletter. [More Information]
Expand all
2025
- McGillivray, G. (2025). "A Sense in Silence, and a Will in Thought": Was David Garrick a Proto-Stanislavskian? Stanislavski Studies. [More Information]
2023
- McGillivray, G. (2023). Actors, Audiences, and Emotions in the Eighteenth Century: Communities of Sentiment. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
2022
- McGillivray, G. (2022). Review: Mahagonny Songspiel and Die sieben Todsunden. Kurt Weill Newsletter. [More Information]
2021
- McGillivray, G. (2021). Book review: 'Theatres of Feeling: Affect, Performance, and the Eighteenth-Century Stage' by Jean I. Marsden. Theatre Journal, 72(2), 258-259. [More Information]
2019
- McGillivray, G. (2019). Scaffolded learning: a model of historically informed performance practice and action research in Rehearsing Shakespeare. Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 10(1), 85-96. [More Information]
2018
- McGillivray, G. (2018). "Suiting Forms to Their Conceit": Emotion and Convention in Eighteenth-Century Tragic Acting. Theatre Survey, 59(2), 169-189. [More Information]
2017
- McGillivray, G. (2017). Rant, Cant and Tone: The Voice of the Eighteenth-Century Actor and Sarah Siddons. Theatre Notebook, 71(1), 2-20.
2016
- McGillivray, G. (2016). Nature Transformed: English Landscape Gardens and Theatrum Mundi. M/C Journal, 19(4), 1-12.
2015
- McGillivray, G. (2015). Arcadian Scenes: Bougainville, Banks and Theatrical Perception in the South Pacific. In Maryrose Casey (Eds.), Embodying Transformation: Transcultural Performance, (pp. 1-16). Melbourne: Monash University Press.
2014
- McGillivray, G. (2014). Motions of the Mind: Transacting Emotions on the Eighteenth-Century Stage. Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research, 28(2), 5-24.
2013
- McGillivray, G. (2013). Motions of the Mind: Transacting Emotions on the Eighteenth-Century Stage. Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research, 28(2), 5-129.
2011
- McGillivray, G. (2011). Review of Playing for Real: Actors on Playing Real People, edited By Tom Cantrell and Mary Luckhurst (UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2010). Performance Paradigm, 7, 1-4. [More Information]
- McGillivray, G. (2011). Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia: Hidden Archives of Performance. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing.
- McGillivray, G. (2011). Still. Not seen: Photography and the archive under the bed. In McGillivray, Glen (Eds.), Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia: Hidden Archives of Performance, (pp. 173-189). Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing. [More Information]
show 1 more
2010
- McGillivray, G. (2010). King/Cate: Stardom, Aura and the Stage Figure in the Sydney Theatre Company's Production of Richard II. TDR - the Drama Review, 54(3), 158-163. [More Information]
- McGillivray, G. (2010). Pleasure out of Suffering: Negotiating Material Reality Through Fetishism and Disavowal in Food Court. About Performance, 10(2010), 93-106. [More Information]
2009
- Bollen, J., Harvey, N., Holledge, J., McGillivray, G. (2009). AusStage: e-research in the performing arts. Australasian Drama Studies, 54, 178-194.
- McGillivray, G. (2009). The discursive formation of theatricality as a critical concept. Metaphorik.de, 17, 101-114.
2008
- McGillivray, G. (2008). Globing the Globe: September 11 and Theatrical Metaphor. Theory and Event, 11(4), 1-6.
- McGillivray, G. (2008). 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, 52, 69-84.
- McGillivray, G. (2008). Still. Not seen: the hidden archive of performance. About Performance, 8, 31-45.
show 1 more
2005
- McGillivray, G. (2005). Blue by PJ Williams [Director]. Seymour Centre, Sydney, Australia.
- McGillivray, G. (2005). Faking truth: the 'problem' of 'theatricality'. In Ravi Chaturvedi and Brian Singleton (Eds.), Ethnicity and Identity: Global Performance, (pp. 117-129). India: Rawat Publications.
2004
- McGillivray, G. (2004). Tea by Angus Strachan [Director]. Melbourne Arts Centre, Sydney Opera House, Parramatta Riverside Theatre, Australia, Australia.
2002
- McGillivray, G. (2002). Leda, a dance-theatre work by Kay Armstrong [Performance Dramaturg]. Australia.
1999
- McGillivray, G. (1999). The White Project, devised project with Shabnam Hameed [Director/Facilitator]. University of Western Sydney, Australia.
1998
- McGillivray, G. (1998). Customs by Josephine Wilson [Director/Dramaturg]. Theatre of Desire, Sidetrack Theatre, Australia.
1997
- McGillivray, G. (1997). The Glasses of Hector Margolez, devised project from a concept by Chris Strickland [Director/Dramaturg]. Theatre of Desire, The Performance Space, Australia.
Selected Grants
2015
- Communities of Sentiment: Actors‚ Audiences and Emotions in the English Theatre 1710-1812, McGillivray G, Folger Shakespeare Library/Short-term Fellowship
2009
- AusStage: Gateway to Australian live performance phase 4, Holledge J, Marlin C, Bollen J, Carlin D, Mullet J, Kelly V, tompkins J, Burvill T, D'Cruz G, Erskine S, Hassall N, Millne G, Tait P, Casey M, Grehan H, Makeham P, Durban K, Arrighi G, Watt D, Kiernander A, McCallum J, Maxwell I, Trenos H, McGillivray G, Mitchell R, Stone R, Gilbey K, Stephenson P, O'Leary M, Morgillo A, Myers R, Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF)