Dr Mary Mazzilli

Biography

Before joining the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies at Essex in 2016, Mary was a Lecturer in Theatre Theory and Contemporary Practice at Goldsmiths in the Theatre and Performance Department (2015-2016). In 2012-2014, she was a post-doctoral fellow at Nanyang Technological University - Singapore in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. For several years, she has been a Research Associate at Soas, University of London where she lectured in Chinese Theatre and Cinema. In addition to theatre, she has a strong expertise in Literature (World, Comparative Literature and Womens writing): she taught Womens Writing and Gender at Goldsmiths, University of London in the department of English and Comparative Literature. Her monograph Gao Xingjians Post-Exile Plays: Transnationalism and Postdramatic Theatre is published with Bloomsbury Methuen Drama and has attracted good reviews. She has co-edited and contributed to Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Embodiment, Corporeality, Desire and the Ethics of Failure (Bridge21, 2015). She holds a PhD from Soas, University of London, for her thesis titled Gao Xingjian vs Martin Crimp in between Modernism and Postmodernism, and a MSc in Chinese Modern Literature from University of Edinburgh. As a playwright, her plays have been widely staged in both UK (Southwark Playhouse, Old Red Lion etc.) and China. Her play 'Priority Seating' ( a play about contemporary migration in UK) which had a staged reading at the Mercury Theatre in 2017 was funded by Arts Council England and Impact Acceleration Account University of Essex. As a dramaturge, assistant-director and producer, she is the founder and Creative Director of Lumenis Theatre Company, which was awarded in 2011 the Arts Council England Grant for the Arts for the production of Roy Williams 'There is only one Wayne Lee and her play Magical Chairs'. She writes and has published poetry and her first novel (co-written with Addolorata Cagnazzo), Riflessioni di un viaggio was published in Italian, in 2007. Mary is also a theatre and book critic: she has contributed to Times Literary Supplement, Art Desk and Theatre Voice and regularly writes for British Theatre Guide and The Conversation. She would particularly welcome PhD applications in the following areas: World Theatre and Literature ( in particular but not limited to Chinese and East-Asian literature and theatre) ; Comparative Drama and Literature; Playwriting and PaR projects with a focus on intercultural and global performance practices; Post-war British theatre and drama; the Absurd; Multiculturalism and BAME theatre; Postdramatic Theatre; Modernism/Postmodernism; Women's writing; Transnational Chinese Cinema; and Gender.

Qualifications

• BA Hons. In English Literature and Chinese (University of Westminster)

• Msc in Chinese Modern Literature (University of Edinburgh)

• PhD in Chinese and Theatre ( SOAS, University of London)

Appointments

University of Essex

• MA Director, University of Essex (1/1/2019 - 10/2/2020)

• Co-director Centre of Theatre Research, University of Essex, University of Essex (1/9/2019 - present)

• Director of Impact, University of Essex, University of Essex (1/9/2019 - present)

Other academic

• Acting Deputy Dean Postgraduate Research Training, University of Essex (1/7/2022 - 1/2/2023)