Rate My Professor Andy Lavender

Andy Lavender is Provost & Vice-Principal (Academic) at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, assuming this role in 2024. He joined the School in August 2020 as Vice-Principal & Director of Production Arts and Professor of Theatre & Performance. Previously, he served as Professor of Theatre & Performance and Head of Theatre & Performance Studies at the University of Warwick for three years. Prior to that, Lavender was Head of the School of Arts at the University of Surrey, encompassing dance, music, theatre, sound engineering, and the Guildford School of Acting conservatoire. He also held positions as Head of Postgraduate Studies and then Dean of Research at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. Lavender holds a BA (Hons) and PhD. His research specializations include contemporary theatre, intermediality, multimodal performances, rehearsal room practice, collaborative multimedia theatre, documentary theatre and performance, and theatres of engagement in the twenty-first century.

Lavender has authored monographs such as Documentary Theatre & Performance (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2024) and Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement (Routledge, 2016). He co-edited Lightwork: Texts on and from Collaborative Multimedia Theatre (Intellect Books, 2022) and 4x45 | Neoliberalism, Theatre and Performance (Routledge, 2021), and edited volumes of Performance Research, including on Protest (2023). As principal investigator or co-investigator, he leads AHRC-funded projects CResCa, upgrading production arts IT infrastructure for creative technologies research, and ARray, developing augmented reality tools for costume design. A theatre practitioner, he was artistic director of the collaborative multimedia company Lightwork from 1997 to 2011. In professional roles, he is Subject Specialist in Theatre for the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications, chaired the 2012 Institutional Review of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and has conducted accreditation, validation, and consultancy work internationally. His leadership includes developing the UK's largest postgraduate platform in theatre and performance and a PhD program at Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, and overseeing a conservatoire-university merger at Surrey.