School of Creative Arts, Film and Media (SCAFM)

I am a freelance writer and director for musical theatre, whose shows have toured throughout the UK. I joined the University as Senior Lecturer in 2003, and with my colleague Dr George Burrows established the Centre for Music Theatre, which I co-direct, and the journal Studies in Musical Theatre, which I co-edit.

I have directed shows as diverse as the cult fringe hit Dragula and the first ever production of The Magic Flute to be staged in Moldova (with the State Chamber Orchestra and Choir, funded by the British Embassy).

My research focuses on post-structuralist approaches to the musical stage, and I am a member of the Music Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research.

Current Research

Practice-led Research Project^{[Back to top]}

Sweet FA. Interdisciplinary, multimedia and live performance event at the New Theatre Royal, October 2009. Video documentation of both the process and the final event will offer archival research resource for future records.

Books^{[Back to top]}

Symonds, D. (In preparation). Helluva Town. A monograph offering a critical historiography of Broadway’s songs, iconicity and development.

Symonds, D. (In preparation). The early musicals of Rodgers and Hart (1925-1931). A series of case studies representing their early work together as collaborators.

Co-Edited Books^{[Back to top]}

Eigtved, M., C. Risi and D. Symonds (Eds.). (In preparation). Music theatre: performance, experience and context. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi Press.

Articles^{[Back to top]}

Symonds, D. (In preparation). Intermediality and collaborative practice. International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media.

Book Chapters^{[Back to top]}

Symonds, D. (In preparation). Complexities of meaning: towards a conceptualisation of meaning in music theatre. In M. Eigtved, C. Risi & D. Symonds (Eds.), Music theatre: performance, experience and context (pp. 00-00). Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi Press.

Publications

Co-Edited Journal Issues^{[Back to top]}

Symonds, D. & Rebellato, D. (Eds.). (2009). The Broadway musical: new approaches [Special Issue]. Contemporary Theatre Review, 19(1).

Journal Articles^{[Back to top]}

Symonds, D. (2009). Deconstructing the hat: Sunday in the park with Derrida. Contemporary Theatre Review, 19(1), 101-112.

Symonds, D. & Burrows, G. (2008, Autumn). Unsung heroes: new musical theatre and the creative industries. IQ: Thinking in Colour, 12-14.

Symonds, D. (2008). The story of O: the aesthetics and rhetoric of a common vowel sound. Studies in Musical Theatre, 2(3), 245-259.

Symonds, D. (2007). The corporeality of musical expression: ‘the grain of the voice’ and the actor-musician. Studies in Musical Theatre, 1(2),167-181.

Book Chapters^{[Back to top]}

Symonds, D. (Forthcoming). Orchestration and arrangement: creating the Broadway sound. In R. Knapp, M. Morris & S. Wolf (Eds.), Oxford handbook of the American musical. Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

Symonds, D. (2007). The resistible rise of Jerry Springer: how an opera revived the polemical stage. In C. Westgate (Ed.), Brecht, Broadway and United States Theater (pp. 146-165). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Book Reviews^{[Back to top]}

Symonds, D. (2009). Review of Directors and the new musical drama: British and American musical theatre in the 1980s and 1990s. Theatre Research International, 34(3), 328-9.

Symonds, D. (2007). Review of Lady in the dark: biography of a musical. Studies in Musical Theatre, 1(3), 313-315.

Symonds, D. (2006). Review of
Unfinished business: Broadway musicals as works-in-progress. Contemporary Theatre Review, 16
(3), 360-361.

Symonds, D. (2004). Review of Our musicals, ourselves. Contemporary Theatre Review, 14(1), 117-118.

Membership of Editorial Boards^{[Back to top]}

Co-Editor, Studies in Musical Theatre (Intellect). ISSN 1750 3159.