Dr Molly Flynn

Overview

Biography

Molly Flynn is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance. She is Programme Director of the BA Theatre and Performance and co-director of Birkbeck's Centre for Contemporary Theatre.

 

Prior to joining Birkbeck, Molly worked at Royal Holloway, University of London (2016-2017) and University College London (2015-2016). She completed her PhD at University of Cambridge (2016) and her MA at Brown University (2008). 

Alongside her work as a teacher and a researcher, Molly is also a performer, producer, and curator of socially engaged theatre. Her work includes the Women and War project (2022) which supported the commissioning and translation of two short plays by leading Ukrainian playwrights Kateryna Penkova and Anastasiia Kosodii, as well as the co-producing of On the War at the Royal Court Theatre (April 2020). Molly is a co-founder of the US-based experimental theatre collective the New York Neo-Futurists (2004). 

Molly's research analyzes theatre as venue for social change and space for civic engagement. Her current project focuses on Ukrainian theatre sine the Euromaidan Revolution as a form of anticolonial resistance and cultural diplomacy. She is the editor of Ukrainian New Drama After the Euromaidan Revolution (2023) and the author of Witness onstage: Documentary theatre in twenty-first-century Russia (2020). Her research has also been published in journals such TDR, New Theatre Quarterly, RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, Problems of Post-Communism, Open Democracy, and Calvert Journal. 

 

 

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Cambridge, 2016
• MA, Brown University, 2008
• BA, New York University, 2006

ORCID

0000-0003-0569-4454

Research

Research overview

Molly's most recent research includes the publication of the landmark anthology of Ukrainian plays in English translation Ukrainian New Drama After the Euromaidan Revolution (2023). Her work on Ukrainian theatre can also be found in the TDR article 'Class Act: East-West. Youth Theatre and the Making of Meaning in Postrevolutionary Ukraine' (2022). Molly is also the author of Witness onstage: Documentary theatre in twenty-first-century Russia (2020), and has contributed chapters to the collections New Drama in Russian: Performance, Politics, and Protest in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (2020) and Contemporary European Playwrights (2020).

 In April 2019, Molly co-organised the international symposium Depicting Donbas: Creative and critical responses to the war in Ukraine, a series of events which brought artists and academics into dialogue to explore the role creative practices play in times of conflict. The series included presentations from leading Ukrainian artists and scholars as well as two performances by the Theatre of Displaced People. 

Before arriving at Birkbeck, Molly worked as a post-doctoral researcher on the AHRC funded project For Love or Money? Collaboration between amateur and professional theatre, based in the Department of Drama, Theatre, and Dance at Royal Holloway. Her work on the project explored the impact of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Open Stages initiative.

Supervision and teaching

Teaching

I teach on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate theatre studies modules including the BA Theatre Studies, MA Dramaturgy, and MA Text and Performance.

Publications