Disrupting the hierarchy of knowledge production: the case of documenting social theatre in Palestine (2021)

Article for Studies in Theatre & Performance that calls for more activist-researchers in social theatre, and for our work to be more aligned with/serving the communities, activists and artists we study.

When theatre can wait: the ambiguity of silence in activist theatre (2022)

Written for the Journal Performance Research.
I ask when, if at all, theatre should be silent, specifically within the activist initiatives. In the midst of protest movements, what is the significance of socially engaged theatre practice that is still: is it a reflective pause, an opportunity to (re)consider activist strategies, to collectively listen and gather strength? ​

Performing Solidarities: the 'with' (2024)

A co-edited special edition for Ride: The Journal of Applied Theatre with Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta.
We ask what the role of theatre academics and practitioners are, in solidarity. Despite its wide use in public rhetoric, what does a practice of solidarity look like, who is its audience, and what limitations does its performance reveal?​

Book: 
Care Aesthetics & the arts
​(2025)

Co-edited with James Thompson and Kate Maguire-Rosier
Published by Routledge
​Available from Fall 2025

An Ode to Playgrounds: on care, unruliness, and the art of playgroundology
(2025)

Book chapter in Care Aesthetics & the Arts (edited by K Maguire-Rosier, Polonyi, Thompson), that looks at the spatial design of playground and play practices to ask what would happen if playgrounds were designed through a process of care and attention to the players. It includes a brief history of the suppression of the young body through the changing trends in playground designs throughout the 20th century.

Book:
Wild Play: the spaces where playfulness matters (working title)
​(MU Press, estimated publication 2027)

This book (publisher: Manchester University Press) is a call to take the power of play more seriously. It repositions the theory and practice of play among adults in performance studies, specifically in socially-engaged theatre. Grounded in an interdisciplinary study of play through anthropology, human geography, and activist and artistic practices, it explores how players of all ages can disrupt social and institutional systems of hierarchy and discipline, and reveals a riskier side of play - disobedient, wild, and threateningly uncontrolled. 

Essay: '100 Performances I don’t have time to do’ 
​(forthcoming)

​An essay written with Adelina Ong, Sophie Dixon, Susannah Henry and Hannah Rowlands, listing all the creative productions that are creatively left hanging due to parenting.
 Imagine Theatres, Special Issue 2026 ‘On Scale’ (forthcoming)

Book:
​Care Aesthetics and everyday resistance: the extraordinary and the political in practices of everyday life (Routledge, estimated publication 2028)

This is a co-edited book with Alisha Ibkar. 
In a time shaped by overlapping global crises, care has emerged as a vital site of resistance. It is at once a practice of endurance and a political method. Yet even as this turn to care as 'radical' and 'revolutionary' gains ground, our attention has gravitated towards its most visible and spectacular performances: mass gatherings, collective chants, raised fists and flags. Beneath these heightened moments lies another register of collective life - the "minor" gestures of everyday care, that materialise, sustain, and render such resistance possible.
In this book, we ask how the 'quieter' more mundane gestures of care might unsettle how theorise power, vulnerability, and collective organisation as resistance.
​

Paper:
Democracy at Play: making theatre as politics (and not 'political theatre') 
​(2025)

Paper presented at the European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance (Sep 2025)
​
​What is the relationship between democracy and playfulness? At a time when our cultural democracies are facing an existential crisis, with electoral authoritarian rule becoming far more normalised (Carethers & Press 2022), can participatory, playful and creative forms of citizen assemblies strengthen democratic resistance? This presentation examines the practice of Legislative Theatre, an artform originating in Brazil of the 1990s, that brings together community members, advocates and policymakers to identify and develop new legislation, as an experimental form of participatory democracy. I ask what role creative and imaginative play have in strengthening the deliberative, political process toward political action.

Paper:
Why are we not talking about anarchism?
​(2025)

Paper presented at Theatre and Performance Research Association (Sep 2025)

Academic scholarship never mentions a key concept at the heart of community-based care work: anarchy. Often misconceived as a ‘dirty word’ pertaining to violent behaviour and inciting societal chaos, the practice of anarchy has never been openly considered – only silently practiced on the edges of theoretical conversation. I share what I see as the critical benefits of anarchist thinking to better navigate complex ecosystems of power in community organising. Leaning on examples of everyday performances of care in grassroots, mutual aid groups around Manchester, I use a care aesthetics framework to show that collective care is the making and doing of everyday anarchism. The significance of this anarcho-feminist lens (Barukh Milstein 2024; Branson 2022) in applied theatre is the following: in a time of ‘democratic crisis’ and rising rhetoric against socio-economically marginalised voices, anarchist practices offer urgent guidance in building relationships of care, and a sense of mutual responsibility. In serving ‘not [as] destruction but a productive disruption’ within ideology (Moscovitch 2024), anarchism helps us notice everyday spaces of solidarity, small but insistent networks of support, and recognises the labour in community organising that is often overlooked but sustains a movement’s ability to find joy in resistance.

Report:
Understanding the impact of artistic creativity as a tool for social change (In Place of War) (2020)

This was a co-written report for an arts organisation working in zones of armed conflict and political violence, on the socio-economic impact of their work. It was funded by UKRI.
To read a summary, you can go to this page.