I am currently a Senior Research Fellow for the research project Local Theatres: Participation, Inclusion, Imagination (September 2024-November 2026). Funded by the AHRC, this research will investigate the contribution theatres make to their local communities, and how theatre-making might contribute to re-imagining an expanded idea of 'the local'. Specifically, I am interested in the materiality of small, local theatre buildings - conceptualising these spaces as toolboxes that support theatre makers and companies.

My research has broadly explored the cultural geographies of amateur creativity, including building biographies, and the spaces, materialities, and creative processes of theatre-makers - specifically those working backstage as set builders and set designers. I am currently investigating set model boxes and their makers.

Backstage spaces have been a recurring theme throughout my research - both in theatres and museums. Before my current post, I was an Andrew W. Mellon research fellow at the V&A Research Institute (VARI), working on the project Show+Tell+Share (2018-2022). Here my research explored object-person encounters in museum storage through the idea of serendipity. I was also a postdoctoral researcher for Civic Theatres: A Place for Towns (2021-2022), funded by the AHRC. Theatre in Towns (2023) - a co-authored book with Helen Nichsolson, Jenny Hughes, and Gemma Edwards - can be downloaded here: Theatre in Towns | Helen Nicholson, Jenny Hughes, Gemma Edwards, Cara (taylorfrancis.com). 

I gained my PhD from the Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance at Royal Holloway, University of London with my thesis titled A Study of Amateur Theatre: Making and Making-Do (2018). This interdisciplinary study analysed amateur dramatics as a craft and creative practice, placing focus on the people involved in backstage roles as set builders, set designers and costume-makers - foregrounding the work that happens before, after, and around a performance, rather than the performance itself. My PhD contributed to the wider project Amateur Dramatics: Crafting Communities in Time and Space which was funded under the AHRC Connected Communities Scheme.

During this time I was also a postgraduate member of the Centre for GeoHumanities, an interdisciplinary initiative responding to the growing interdisciplinary engagement between geography and arts and humanities disciplines.

I hold a BA(Hons) in Human Geography from the University of Exeter (Cornwall Campus) and an MA in Cultural Geography from Royal Holloway, University of London.