Rate My Professor Tim Fitzpatrick

Tim Fitzpatrick is an Honorary Associate Professor in the Discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney. He earned a BA (Hons) and PhD from the University of Sydney. His academic career began in the Department of Italian Studies within the Faculty of Arts, followed by his role as one of the founders of the Department of Performance Studies, where he served as Associate Professor from 1985 to 2013 before retiring to his current honorary position.

Fitzpatrick's research focuses on the interplay between playtexts and performance staging in early modern English drama, with particular attention to the spatial implications, entrance and exit patterns, stage resources, and architectural constraints of Elizabethan and Jacobean public playhouses. He examines how Shakespeare and contemporary playwrights inscribed performance conditions into their texts, adhering to generic conventions of theatrical place across companies. Key publications include his book Playwright, Space and Place in Early Modern Performance: Shakespeare and Company (2011), which analyzes spatial dynamics in early modern plays; articles such as 'The Two Doors' Traffic of Our Stage': Developing and Testing 'Spatial' Readings (2015), Shakespeare's Staged Spaces and Playgoers’ Perceptions (2015), From Archaeological Remains to Onion Dome: At the Upper Limits of Speculation (2011), Stage Management, Dramaturgy and Spatial Semiotics in Shakespeare's Dialogue (1999), and Shakespeare's Exploitation of a Two-Door Stage: Macbeth (1995). He also edited the Theatre as Performance series. In collaboration with Russell Emerson, Fitzpatrick developed a geometrically precise model of Shakespeare's second Globe playhouse (1614) using computer-aided design, archaeological evidence, and a contemporary sketch, revealing a smaller structure with two stage entrances. This research informed the Popup Globe, a full-scale reconstruction in Auckland in 2016 for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, advancing scholarly and practical understandings of early modern staging.