Rate My Professor Penny Gay

Professor Penny Gay is Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney, within the Discipline of English and Writing. She earned a BA from the University of Melbourne, a PhD from the University of London, and holds MAs. Gay held a Personal Chair in English Literature and Drama and taught at the University of Sydney for over 35 years, contributing significantly to the English department's curriculum in literature and performance studies. Her career includes progression from Associate Professor to full Professor, with emeritus status recognizing her long service and scholarly impact.

Gay's research specializations center on theatre history, Shakespeare in performance, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British drama and fiction, and Jane Austen's theatrical contexts. She has strong interests in music, particularly opera. Key publications include Jane Austen and the Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2002), which explores Austen's engagement with contemporary theatre; As She Likes It: Shakespeare's Unruly Women (Routledge, 1994); The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies (Cambridge University Press, 2008); Jane Austen's Emma (Sydney University Press, 1995); and as co-editor, Teaching Shakespeare Beyond the Centre: Australasian Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). She contributed a chapter to The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and published articles such as 'The Romanticism of "Persuasion"' (Sydney Studies in English, 2008) and '"So Persuasive an Eloquence"? Roles for Women on the Eighteenth-Century Stage' (Sydney University Open Journals, 2012). Gay secured Australian Research Council grants, including Discovery Project DP0560111 ($148,186) and Linkage Project LP0882082 ($274,454) with Kathryn Flaherty. A Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA), she is recognized among the University of Sydney's notable members. Her scholarship has shaped understandings of literary performance and adaptation, influencing studies in Austen and Shakespeare across Australasia and beyond. She has delivered public lectures, including on Jane Austen's theatrical imagination.