Bobby Smith

Bobby Smith is a practitioner and researcher interested in exploring social action and change through arts, performance and storytelling. He studied applied theatre at the Central School of Speech and Drama before completing a Master’s in Global Development at Leeds. The challenges and issues of working on development projects led him to undertake a PhD at Manchester, where he was based between the drama department and the Global Development Institute. Bobby joined Warwick in 2019. Before working in universities, he was a freelance community artist and workshop facilitator, using arts-based approaches across a diverse range of projects. These included violence prevention, sex and relationships education, and drugs education for organisations such as Tender Education and Arts; theatre and film projects in criminal justice settings, particularly with young people; and creative approaches to peace and conflict. He was involved for several years with Creative English, a national volunteer-led project using drama to support migrants and refugees to develop a sense of belonging and build their English skills. He also devised theatre for and with different groups, including forum theatre about HIV/AIDS and gender equality, as well as performances for young audiences. In 2017, Bobby supported a forum theatre project with young people experiencing homelessness, led by Cardboard Citizens in Manchester. This developed his awareness of, and skills in, Theatre of the Oppressed, and he was subsequently employed to continue working with the group. He is still occasionally involved in arts projects outside the university and his academic research. For example, in 2024 he contributed workshops on movement as part of How’s the Weather in Your Head, a co-created project led by Becky Warnock in collaboration with Chisenhale Gallery and young people who had experienced struggles with their mental health. Alongside facilitating and creating projects, Bobby has coordinated and managed several initiatives, including an arts-based project supporting young people at risk and an international participatory photography and development programme. He has trained people in the use of arts-based approaches, developed handbooks and resources for several charities internationally, and been part of projects in the UK, Kenya, Hong Kong, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi. These experiences and his ongoing collaborations inform both his teaching and research, which examine the claims made for applied and socially engaged performance and support artistic and creative approaches to education and social action. He has published widely on applied and socially engaged performance, particularly on theatre and global development, violence, and the climate crisis. Much of his work has been co-written with collaborators in other disciplines, artists and practitioners. He is a co-editor of the journal ATR: Socially Engaged Performance.