Dr Mary Mazzilli

Biography

Mary is an expert of Chinese/British Modern and Contemporary Drama, Literature and Cinema, and is also a theatre and creative writing practitioner. Through her recent and Practice as Research projects she has become a champion for Impact work and Knowledge Transfer and Public Engagement through the Arts and Creative Practices (creative writing) at the intersection with Social and Healthcare (especially mental health and gender), Migration Studies and community engagement. In her teaching she is a strong advocate for diversifying/decolonizing the curriculum and her flagship 2-year modules Global Encounters in Theatre and Global Encounters in Theatre and Film introduce students to practices and traditions from around the Globe. The latter was developed through the British Council Going Global Partnerships - Exploratory Grant, which was awarded in 2022. Her monograph Gao Xingjians Post-Exile Plays: Transnationalism and Postdramatic Theatre is published with Bloomsbury Methuen Drama and has attracted good reviews. She is now working on her second monograph in Chinese and Comparative Literature, 21st century approaches to Exophonic World Literature and Transnational Cinema: the anti-monolinguism of Chinese female writers and filmmakers, which explores the English work of Chinese women writers such as Guo Xiaolu, Li Yiyun and Chinese women filmmakers, such as Chloe Zhao. Another monograph in theatre studies Post-migrant theatre in post-Brexit Britain is also in preparation. As a playwright and creative practitioner, her latest work Lightstreams (funded by ACE in 2022/23 and recipient of several Impact-related fund), a play for stage about migrant healthcare workers, was longlisted for Theatre 503 International Playwriting Award. It was staged at the Mercury Theatre (Colchester), Bush Theatre Studio and Omnibus Theatre in London. Short-films based on sections of the play have also informed an EDI training toolkit to train care-home managers in the region of Essex to promote well-being amongst migrant and BAME social care workers in the UK. This is under development and is to be piloted with local organisations. Mary often works with filmmakers to create short-films that use story-telling with the aim to make visible the invisible stories and the experiences of migrant communities by not only generating awareness but also changing perceptions about migration among young people in educational (schools from primary to secondary) and among council workers in training settings. Mary has longstanding collaborations with Essex charities such as RAMA a Colchester-based voluntary organisation that offers non-judgemental, practical support to refugees, asylum seekers and individuals facing severe vulnerability. Another recent play Priority Seating about 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. Her plays have been widely staged in both UK (Southwark Playhouse, Old Red Lion etc.) and China. As a dramaturge, 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' that toured London and Beijing. She also writes fiction (she is a Curtis Brown alumna): her novel The Lands of the living is under preparation and her first novel, co-written with Addolorata Cagnazzo, Riflessioni di un viaggio was published in Italian, in 2007. 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. Mary is also a theatre and book critic: she has contributed to Times Literary Supplement, Art Desk and Theatre Voice, 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, socially-engaged drama and experimental theatre (at the moment she has a strong interest in monological drama, in drama that tests the boundaries of naturalism, in verbatim theatre and in the connection between Theatre and Migration); Post-war British theatre and drama; the Absurd; Multiculturalism and BAME theatre; Postdramatic Theatre; Modernism/Postmodernism; Women's writing; Transnational Chinese Cinema; Gender and Literature/Theatre.

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 (1/9/2018 - 1/9/2020)

• Graduate Director, University of Essex (1/4/2024 - 1/10/2024)

• Director of Partnerships, University of Essex (1/9/2025 - present)

Other academic

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