Sita Thomas
Dr Sita Thomas, BA, MA, PhD, FRSA
Education
PhD '“Towards a New National Story”: Issues of Cultural Diversity in the Casting and Performance of Shakespeare in Britain 2012-2016’
(Arts and Humanities Research Council funded), 2012-2017
University of Warwick
MA in Movement: Directing and Teaching
(Arts and Humanities Research Council funded), 2011-2012
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
1st Class Honours BA in English Literature and Theatre Studies, 2008-2011
University of Warwick
Work in higher education
Sita teaches and lectures at universities and drama schools at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She worked as a personal academic tutor and guest lecturer at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama for five years on the MA in Movement Directing and Teaching, and BA Performance Arts. She particularly enjoys directing third year productions at drama schools including BA Acting students at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and is eager to continue her work in these areas.
Sita delivering a paper at Kiln Theatre in 2016 about South Asian Shakespeare productions. Key discussion points include the work of Tara Arts, Phizzical and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Publications
- 'Searching For Juliet Review', in Studies in Theatre and Performance, ed. by Sara Reimers (London: Taylor & Francis, forthcoming)
- 'Towards Emilia: Black and South Asian Women in the Performance of Shakespeare', in Notelets of Filth: A Companion Reader to Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's Emilia, ed. by Laura Kressly, Aida Patient, Kimberly A. Williams (London: Routledge, 2023)
- 'Talent Is Democratic, But Opportunity is Not: Barriers To Access And Why Opera Matters', in The Last Days of the Opera, ed. by Denise Wendel-Poray, Gert Korentschnig, Christian Kircher (Italy: Skira, 2022)
- ‘Souks, Saris and Shakespeare: Engaging young, diverse audiences at Shakespeare’s Globe and the National Theatre’, in The Diverse Bard: Shakespeare, Race and Performance, ed. by Delia Jarrett-Macauley (London: Routledge, 2017)
- '“The Dog, the Guard, the Horses and the Maid”: Diverse Casting at the
RSC’ (Contemporary Theatre Review, Volume 24, Issue 4, Taylor and Francis, 2014)
- ‘Much Ado About Nothing dir. By Iqbal Khan (review)’ (Asian Theatre Journal, Volume 32, Number 2, Fall 2015)
Guest Lecture/Panel Discussions
‘Tarell Alvin McCraney: From Shakespeare to Moonlight, Increasing Diverse Representation’ by invitation of the English Speaking Union at the Gielgud Theatre in London’s West End (March 2017)
Panellist for ‘Engaging with Shakespeare in the 21st Century’ by invitation of the English Speaking Union at the Gielgud Theatre (March 2016)
Panellist for ‘Shakespeare: 50 years hence’ by invitation of Professor Carol Rutter for the ‘Festival of the Imagination’, University of Warwick (October 2015)
Presentation lecture by invitation of Dr Sarah Pett, Teaching Fellow, Global English, Faculty of Languages & Cultures, SOAS, University of London (May 2015)
Panellist for a roundtable panel at the launch of a Special Issue of the Contemporary Theatre Review journal ‘A Controversial Company: Debating the Casting of the RSC’s The Orphan of Zhao’ (November 2014)
Conference Papers
- “South Asian Shakespeare: Disturbing the Homogenous Narrative of the British Stage”
(In Robeson’s Footsteps, Tricycle Theatre, January 2016)
- ‘’My lord, I fear, has forgot India’: The relationship between Bollywood and Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing (2012) and Cymbeline (2013)’
(The Bard in Bombay: Shakespeare in India Conference, organised by South Asian Film Education Society, Harbour Centre Campus of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver BC, 7 November 2015.)
- “British, Bollywood or Indian? Challenges of South Asian Shakespeare in Britain”
(International Federation for Theatre Research World Congress 2014, University of Warwick)
- “‘My lord, I fear, has forgot India’: The relationship between Bollywood and Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing (2012) and Cymbeline (2013)”
(Shakespeare and Bollywood Conference, Royal Holloway University).