Dr Abigail Rokison-Woodall

Abigail began her career as a professional actor, training at LAMDA.  She completed her PhD at Cambridge University in 2006 after which she became Director of Studies for English, Drama and Education at Homerton College from 2007-2013.

She is now Associate Professor and Deputy Director (Education) of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham.  Her first monograph, Shakespearean Verse Speaking won the Shakespeare’s Globe first book award. As well as writing a number of journal articles and chapters on Shakespeare and theatre, she has also published Shakespeare for Young People, Shakespeare in the Theatre: Nicholas Hytner and As You Like It: Language and Writing.  She is the co-general editor The Arden Shakespeare Performance Editions and Shakespeare in Performance: A Practice Guide series and has edited A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet and King Lear (with Simon Russell Beale).  She is currently co-writing Shakespeare and Lecoq: A Practical Guide with Ed Woodall.

For the past few years she has been working with the RSC on ‘Signing Shakespeare’, a project which has produced a series of resources and films for teaching Shakespeare’s Macbeth to deaf children.  She has recently directed Edward II and Massacre at Paris for ‘The Marlowe Sessions’ – an immersive audio project (L6L21 productions).