BSA People

Board of Trustees

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  José A. Pérez Díez

  Joint Chair

  José A. Pérez Díez is a Lecturer in Early Modern Drama in the School of English at the University of Leeds. He is the Associate Editor of  The Complete Works of John Marston  (Oxford University Press, 2025), and his edition of Love’s Cure, or The Martial Maid by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger is published in the Revels Plays series (Manchester University Press, 2022). His research engages with textual editing and bibliography, book history, the influence of Spanish Golden Age literature on English Renaissance drama, the use of performance as research, and the study of Shakespeare in modern performance. His edition of Shakespeare’s King John is forthcoming in the Arden Shakespeare, Fourth Series.

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  Maria Shmygol

  Joint Chair

  Maria Shmygol is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the University of Galway. She is the editor of William Percy’s The Aphrodysial (Malone Society / Manchester University Press, 2022) and co-editor, with Lukas Erne, of the German play Tito Andronico (1620), published by Arden Shakespeare and available in open access. Maria is assistant editor of The Complete Works of John Marston (under contract with Oxford University Press, gen. eds. Martin Butler and Matthew Steggle), and with Eleanor Rycroft, she is co-editing a special issue of the Shakespeare journal on the theme of ‘Shakespeare in Action’. Maria has held postdoctoral research fellowships at the Universities of Leeds (2020-21) and Geneva (2016-19), and is a project member of Medieval and Early Modern Orients. Maria’s research interests include textual editing, early modern drama, travel literature, and cross-cultural encounters.

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  Coen Heijes

  Treasurer

  Coen Heijes teaches Shakespeare, Presentism and Performance at the University of Groningen. He finished his CPA education in 1994 and holds MAs in Shakespeare Studies, Shakespeare & Theatre, English Literature, and Anthropology and completed his PhD on the impact of history and culture on communication. He wrote/edited/participated in books on the abolishment of slavery, multicultural society, diversity and leadership, stereotyping and perception, and performing early modern drama today; his latest book is Shakespeare, Blackface and Race (CUP, 2020). He is a member of the editorial board of Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance. He is particularly interested in topical political, social and ethical issues and how these relate to and interact with Shakespeare studies and performance.

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  Alexander Thom

  Membership Officer

  Alexander Thom is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Leed’s School of English. His postdoctoral project focuses on the displaced in English Renaissance drama, c. 1575-1625. His first book, Office and Duty in King Lear: Shakespeare’s Political Theologies, is forthcoming with Palgrave Shakespeare Studies. The monograph was developed from his M3C AHRC-funded PhD, which was awarded in 2020 by the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. During his undergraduate degree at the University of Melbourne, Thom was awarded the Shakespeare Scholarship and the Bowen Prize. Thom also regularly reviews theatre for ‘Shakespeare’.

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  Kat Hipkiss

  Web and Communications Officer

  Kat Hipkiss is a researcher, lecturer, actor, dramaturg, and director specialising in contemporary performances of early modern plays. The main focus of her research is corporeal feminist understandings of the body in performance, and she completed her PhD entitled ‘“My body shall pay recompense”: The Embodiment of Margaret in Selected Staged and Televised Cycles of the First Tetralogy’ at Bath Spa University in 2021. She is a Lecturer in Drama at Bath Spa University and a Teacher in the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Bristol, and is currently developing a book project about hair in contemporary performances of Shakespeare.

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  Andrea Smith

  Web and Communications Deputy

  Andrea Smith’s research focuses on audio productions of early modern drama, primarily Shakespeare. Her work investigates how texts intended for the stage are translated into an audio-only medium through voice, music and sound effects. Her PhD, “‘Look with thine ears’: A Century of Shakespeare’s Plays on BBC Radio” was CHASE DTP funded and she has published papers in Shakespeare Survey and Shakespeare, among other publications. She has spoken about her research on local and national radio, including the five-part BBC Radio 3 series The Beeb and The Bard which she wrote and co-presented with the actor Samuel West. Andrea is a lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of Suffolk.

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  CJ Turner-McMullan

  Social Media Trustee

  CJ Turner-McMullan is an Associate Lecturer and practice-based researcher at Bath Spa University, with a focus on Shakespeare and masculinities, gender performance, adaptation, and contemporary theatre practice. They are an independent theatre-maker, former Research Fellow of Royal Holloway, University of London and National Theatre, Public Acts, and the Creative Director of production company Apricity Theatre. Their works include Thunder, a queer modern-day reimagining of John Webster’s The White Devil, and second tetralogy play adaptations Fall of Kings, Between the Armies and The Breach, developed as part of their PhD on disrupting performances of hegemony through the adaptation and direction of Shakespeare.

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  Miranda Fay Thomas

  Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Trustee

  Miranda Fay Thomas is Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance at Trinity College Dublin. Their research focuses on Shakespearean theatre history and its afterlives, with particular interests in embodiment and accessibility. Miranda is the author of Shakespeare’s Body Language: Shaming Gestures and Gender Politics on the Renaissance Stage (2019), and the editor of The Tempest for Arden Performance Editions (2021). Current projects include a co-edited collection (The Idea of the Shakespearean Actor), a new monograph on the politics of casting, and a critical edition of The Taming of A Shrew for the final volume of the New Oxford Shakespeare. From 2022, they will write the annual review of books on Shakespeare in performance for Shakespeare Survey. 

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  Deborah Cartmell

  Chair of the Events Committee

  Deborah Cartmell is Professor of English and Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor, Research, at De Montfort University. She is one of the founding trustees of the British Shakespeare Association and founder and co-editor of the Shakespeare (Routledge) and Adaptation (Oxford University Press) journals. Her latest publication is Adaptation: Critical and Primary Sources, 3 volumes, ed. with Imelda Whelehan (Bloomsbury, 2022).

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  Karen McGivern

  Education Trustee

  Karen McGivern was a secondary school English teacher for eighteen years, working in the UK and overseas. For the last five years, she has been involved in Initial Teacher Education, training and supporting people to become English teachers. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Recently, she completed her PhD in Shakespeare and Education. Her thesis focused on student and teacher perceptions of the value of ‘reworked’ Shakespeare texts in English schools. The interviews that she conducted for her study gave her an insight into how Shakespeare is currently taught and valued.

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  Ollie Jones

  Chair of Performance and Media Committee

  Ollie Jones is Senior Lecturer in Theatre in the School of Arts and Creative Technologies at the University of York. His research and teaching combine traditional and interdisciplinary research with practice. He has written on early modern touring performances, the architecture and decoration of indoor playhouses, and is developing work on early modern rhetoric and the modern rehearsal room. As assistant director and director he has worked on productions including James Shirley’s Hyde Park, George Peele’s The Troublesome Reign of King John, and staged work by Philip Massinger, John Webster, and John Ford, Thomas Dekker and William Rowley. He is currently co-director and investigator on the Shakespeare’s Rivals project.

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  Brett Greatley-Hirsch

  Chair of Honorary Fellowships Committee

  Brett Greatley-Hirsch is Associate Professor of Renaissance Literature and Textual Studies at the University of Leeds. He is a coordinating editor of Digital Renaissance Editions, co-editor of the journal Shakespeare, and co-author (with Hugh Craig) of Style, Computers, and Early Modern Drama: Beyond Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

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  Tom Rutter

  Journal Representative

  Tom Rutter is Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama at the University of Sheffield; over the years his research interests have ranged over early modern ideas about work, repertory studies, Marlowe, and the Cavendish family, in addition to Shakespeare. His books include Work and Play on the Shakespearean Stage, The Cambridge Introduction to Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare and the Admiral’s Men and, most recently, The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama (a collection edited with Michelle M. Dowd). He is an editor of the BSA journal Shakespeare and is currently working on a book on Shakespeare and science.

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  Paul Edmondson

  Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Representative

  Paul Edmondson is Head of Research and Knowledge and Director of the Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival for The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He has published numerous articles and books on Shakespeare and speaks at academic conferences and Shakespeare events around the world. He is Chair of The Hosking Houses Trust for women writers and a priest in The Church of England and serves at St Andrew’s Church, Shottery.

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  Simon Smith

  Shakespeare Institute Representative

  Simon Smith is Associate Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, and the Department of English Literature, University of Birmingham. He researches early modern drama, music and sensory culture. His monograph, Musical Response in the Early Modern Playhouse, 1603-1625 (Cambridge, 2017), won the Shakespeare’s Globe Book Award and the University English Book Prize. He has edited three essay collections, most recently Playing and Playgoing in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2022; with Emma Whipday). Current projects include a Leverhulme-funded study of playgoing, pleasure and judgement. He has acted as a historical music and theatre consultant to the RSC, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Independent and the BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall, and acted as music director for several research productions of early modern plays and masques.

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  Thea Buckley

  Minuting Secretary

  Thea Buckley is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast, mentored by Professor Mark Thornton Burnett on the project ‘South Indian Shakespeares: Reimagining Art Forms and Identities’. Thea has previously worked for the Shakespeare Institute, British Library, Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, co-edited the Shakespeare Institute Review and published work in A Year of Shakespeare, Cahiers  Élisabéthains (2013); Multicultural Shakespeare (2014); Reviewing Shakespeare (2015); and Shakespeare and Indian Cinemas (2019).

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  Sue Best and Phil Bowen

  Joint Elected Members

  Phil’s first acting job after training at Webber Douglas was to play the back legs of the Donkey in ‘Puss in Boots’ at Leatherhead. His subsequent career ranged from touring Shakespeare worldwide with Michael Redgrave, then with The London Shakespeare Group for the British Council, to seasons at Regent’s Park and playing Hamlet for Michael Bogdanov at the Old Vic.

  Sue’s acting career spans appearing in Dr Who to playing Shakespeare in heritage sites. As a Director she ran the W.11 Children’s Opera, taught at Hounslow Borough College, worked as Staff Producer at the Royal Opera House and with Michael Bogdanov as his Assistant Director for the English Shakespeare Company, where she met Phil. Together they formed the Charity Shakespeare Link, engaging with Shakespeare’s words and vision not only through teaching and performing but as a medium for communication and debate. Now based in mid Wales, Shakespeare Link continues to explore the plays whilst hosting an eclectic mix of theatre, workshops, music and community events at its flagship Willow Globe Theatre.

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