Associate Professor Stephe Harrop
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN DRAMA
Drama, Dance and Performance
0151 291 3493
harrops@hope.ac.uk
My research focuses on contemporary storytelling practices, spoken-word performance, Greek tragedy and classical receptions, and performer training. I am currently working on a book exploring new collaborative platforms for story-led performance, and female storytelling artists as innovators in interdisciplinary creativity. Contemporary Storytelling Performance: Female Artists on Practices, Platforms, Presences is forthcoming from Routledge.
Alongside my academic research I work as a professional storyteller, creating new performances for and with audiences across the UK, and beyond. In 2016 I founded The Juniper Tree, a groundbreaking student-led storytelling club in the heart of Liverpool.
To date, I have supervised several PhD projects focusing on actor-training, and contemporary performances/adaptations of ancient drama. I am interested in discussing potential projects on contemporary storytelling practices, classical receptions, and the traditional arts in contemporary performance.
Teaching Specialisms:
- Acting
- Actor-Training
- Classical Drama
- Classical Receptions
- Cultural Histories
- Directing
- Ensemble
- Storytelling
School Roles:
- Associate Professor of Drama
- School Senior Academic Advisor
- Collaborative Lead: Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse
- School Research Mentor
- Year Lead, Third-Year Theatre
- University Research Committee
Recent Publications:
- Harrop, S. (2021), '"No Air Left in Your Lungs": Breathing with Kae Tempest's The Book of Traps and Lessons'. Contemporary Theatre Review 31.1&2 (246-9).
- Harrop, S. (2021), 'Herakles on Chesil Bank: The Archers, Disavowable Classics, and The Small Back Room', in Blanshard, A. & Stafford, E. (eds) The Modern Hercules: Images of the Hero from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century (333-50).
- Dunbar, Z. and Harrop, S. (2018), Greek Tragedy and the Contemporary Actor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Harrop, S. (2018) 'Greek Tragedy, Agonistic Space, and Contemporary Performance'. New Theatre Quarterly 34.2 (99-114).
- Harrop, S. (2018) 'Unfixing Epic: Homeric Orality and Contemporary Performance', in Macintosh, F., McConnell, J., Harrison, S. and Kenward, C. (eds) Epic Performances from the Middle Ages into the Twenty-First Century. Oxford: OUP (262-274).
- Harrop, S. (2018) '"It Happens in Ballads": Scotland, Utopia, and Traditional Song in The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart', in McKerrell, S. and West, G. (eds) Understanding Scotland Musically: Folk, Tradition and Policy. Abingdon: Routledge (109-121).
- Harrop, S. (2018) 'Athens: A Work-in-Progress', Kritika Kultura 30/31 (129-137).
- Harrop, S. (2017). 'Staging a Transforming Great Britain: Tamlane, the Social Turn, and the 2014 Referendum', in Monros-Gaspar, L. (ed.), Re-Thinking Literary Identities: Great Britain, Europe and Beyond. Valencia: Valencia University Press (41-60).
- Harrop, S. (2015). 'Grounded, Heracles and the Gorgon's Gaze', Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 23.1 (169-185).
- Harrop, S. (2014). 'Ercles' Vein: Heracles as Bottom in Ted Hughes' Alcestis', Classical Receptions Journal 6.3 (364-381).
- Harrop, S. (2013). 'Speech, Silence and Epic Performance: Alice Oswald's Memorial', New Voices in Classical Reception Studies 8 (79-91).
- Hall, E. and Harrop, S. (eds) (2010), Theorising Performance: Greek Drama, Cultural History and Critical Practice. London: Duckworth.
Recent Performances:
- Alcestis: In Bits. Improvised spoken-word performance responding to Phrynichus' fragmentary tragedy Alcestis (first performed at University of Notre Dame's London Global Gateway, 2019)
- Henry V: The King's Knickers. A contemporary storytelling show exploring English cultural and political identities today (commissioned by and first performed at the Angel Field Festival, Liverpool 2019)
- Janet's Baby: A New Tamlane. Full-length storytelling performance created in response to shifting boundaries between Scotland, England, and Europe (commissioned by and premiered at the University of Valencia, 2015)
Boards/Networks:The Higher Education Academy (Senior Fellow)The George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling (External Associate)TaPRA, Theatre and Performance Research Association (Prizes Sub-Committee; Postgraduate Essay Prize Coach)Classical Reception Studies Network The Women's Classical Committee (UK)Equity (UK)