Dr Kerrie Reading

Personal statement 

Kerrie Reading is a practitioner-researcher in the School of Music and Performing Arts at Bath Spa. She joined the department in 2022, having previously worked at Cardiff Metropolitan University. As well as working in academia, Kerrie has worked as a freelance theatre maker and practitioner.

Kerrie has performed and exhibited performance work within the UK at various sites including forests, trains, factories and theatres with her former company, Needless Allies. She was an associate performer with theatre makers Stan's Cafe, touring internationally to festivals and venues, she has devised new performance works with Talking Birds, Cyrff Ystwyth and Ali Matthews, and as a solo performer.

Kerrie has a practice-based PhD investigating how past approaches to making alternative performance can be considered today, with a focus on the venue and the archive of Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. She holds an MPhil in Performance, exploring sites of performance with a particular emphasis on socially deprived urban areas. Her first degree focused on Contemporary Performance Practice which sparked her interest in devised work.

Her current research is focused on the body as a site of performance, with an emphasis on trauma and performance. Further research is examining the inherent link between politics and performance.

Her writing on community theatre has been published in the Alicante Journal of English Studies (2021). She has chapters in two Routledge collections: Experiencing Liveness in Contemporary Performance (2016) and The Routledge companion to twentieth century British theatre and performance: volume II 1950–2000 (2025). Her practice-as-research performances have been performed in Chapter Arts Centre (2013), Camden People’s Theatre (2014) and Aberystwyth University (2015). 

Academic qualifications

• PhD (Aberystwyth University 2012-2016)
• MPhil (Birmingham University 2010-2012)
• MDrama (University of Kent 2003-2007)

Professional memberships

• Fellow of Advance HE

Teaching specialisms

• Devised Performance
• Experimental Performance
• Archival and oral histories in performance making
• Ensemble theatre making
• Site-based theatre making 

Areas of research supervision

Kerrie is currently supervsing two PhD students and invites enquiries from potential candidates. Her areas of interest include:

• Site-Specific Practices
• Oral Histories and Archives
• Community Theatre/Applied Theatre
• Devised Theatre
• The Body as a site of Performance-Making