Andy Lavender

Andy Lavender took on the new role of Provost & Vice Principal (Academic) at Guildhall School in 2024. Andy joined Guildhall as Vice-Principal & Director of Production Arts and Professor of Theatre & Performance in August 2020 following three years as Professor of Theatre & Performance and Head of Theatre & Performance Studies at the University of Warwick. He was previously Head of the School of Arts at the University of Surrey, which included dance, music, theatre, sound engineering, and the conservatoire Guildford School of Acting. Prior to that he spent several years at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama as Head of Postgraduate Studies and then Dean of Research.

During his career in higher education, Andy has led on many management projects including the development of what became the largest platform of postgraduate courses in theatre & performance in the UK and the introduction of a successful PhD platform (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama); oversight of new course developments in digital media arts and film and television production, and extensive work on the merger of a conservatoire with a university (University of Surrey); and a raft of industry engagement initiatives, including new partnership activities with Warwick Arts Centre, the largest multi-arts venue outside London (University of Warwick).

He is also the Subject Specialist in Theatre for the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications and chaired the Institutional Review of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in 2012, along with a number of programme validation exercises in Hong Kong over the years. He has served on a number of validation and review exercises in Ireland, Singapore and the UK, and consultancy work includes reviews of research and practice-as-research for a number of institutions in England and Scotland; and refereeing and external membership of panels for institutions in the US, Netherlands, France, Cyprus and Australia.

Andy’s writing includes the monographs Documentary Theatre & Performance (Bloomsbury | Methuen Drama 2024) and Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement (Routledge 2016), and various journal articles and book chapters on contemporary theatre, intermediality and multimodal performances. Work as co-editor includes volumes of the journals Contemporary Theatre Review and Performance Research, and books on rehearsal room practice and intermediality in theatre and performance. Andy is also co-editor of Lightwork: texts on and from collaborative multimedia theatre, for Intellect’s Playtexts series (2022). This gathers texts of productions (1997-2011) by Lightwork, of which he was artistic director, along with commentaries by collaborators. In his work as a theatre practitioner he has devised shows with actors, designers and writers; worked on adaptations of texts; engaged with puppetry, robotics, and various digital technologies; and enjoyed extensive collaboration with costume, lighting, set, sound and video designers and movement directors.

Photo - Paul Cochrane