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Jonathan Meth

Staff details

Position Associate Lecturer
Department Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship
Email j.meth (@gold.ac.uk)
Jonathan Meth

Jonathan has worked since 2002 on the MA in Arts Administration & Cultural Policy, Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship. He also contributes to the MA in Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship and the MA, Cultural Policy, Relations & Diplomacy.

Jonathan co-supervises PhDs with Gerald Lidstone.

From July 2013 to January 2015 he also Convened the MA in Writing for Performance and Dramaturgy for the Theatre and Performance Department at Goldsmiths, where he has also taught on the UG Dramaturgy programme.

Jonathan applies his broad dramaturgical experience to the writing of dissertations and essays, and explores how to curate stories which get to the heart of academic writing and new business propositions alike.

Academic qualifications

  • BA Hons English & American Literature with Drama, UEA 1983
  • Post-graduate Diploma in Theatre Directing, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School 1989

Teaching and Supervision

Research interests

Crossing The Line brought together 3 of Europe’s leading theatre companies who make professional touring theatre with learning disabled artists. My chapter in Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy: Case Studies from the Field. Ed. Philippa Kelly, Routledge, (April 2020) investigates this initial 27 month collaboration, (2014-17) which incorporated residency exchanges, the making of new stage productions, wider industry engagement and a culminating 3-day Festival in Roubaix, France. Operating as Project Dramaturg, I argue that learning disabled theatre is not simply a subset of theatre made by physically or sensorily disabled people, but rather calls for different approaches; which could productively include the intercultural.

I am continuing to pursue this work as Project Dramaturg (2018-21) with an expanded partnership of 6 European companies on 2 overlapping projects: Ogmius, focusing on skills development and Trasna Na Line, focusing around a 4-day festival in Galway due May 2020, showcasing the production work of all these companies as part of Galway’s European Capital of Culture. An important element of this work is the analysis of each company within its cultural context.

The Fence network remains a continuing source of live practical enquiry as to how playwriting landscapes are constructed, curated and navigated in different countries.

Further profile content

Jonathan Meth 's Links

Featured publications

2020: Crossing The Line
Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy: Case Studies from the Field. Ed. Philippa Kelly, Routledge.

Goldsmiths Research Centres/Groups/Projects

Conferences and talks

2019: Crossing The Line
Yale MFA Dramaturgy Programme

2018: Crossing The Line
University of Reading

2019: Celebrating Dramaturgy in the UK: The 2019 Kenneth Tynan Award
Soho Theatre

2019: “Took it as read. Or The Curious Incident of the Fog in the Sightline.” Sarah Kane, Theatre and Mental Health
King’s College London, ‘A Beautiful Mind’- Art, Science and Mental Health programme

Professional Activities

From November 2018 - May 2021 Jonathan is Project Dramaturg on both Trasna Na Line, an EU Creative Europe funded project and Ogmius, an EU Erasmus+ funded project: for the Crossing The Line partnership.

November 2014 - March 2017 Jonathan was Project Dramaturg on Crossing The Line - an EU CE funded collaboration with: Mind The Gap in Bradford, UK. Moomsteatern in Malmo, Sweden and Compagnie de l’Oisesau Mouche in Roubaix, France: three of the world's leading companies making theatre with professional, learning disabled theatre makers.

Jonathan is director/ curator of The Fence, which he set up in 2003 - an international network of playwrights and cultural operators, now based in Stockholm. Over 250 members across 50 countries it has met 27 times - most recently in Cairo in March 2018, in Atlanta in October 2019.

He put together the Janus project (developed out of the Fence), which with EU Culture funding and British Council support translated 16 new plays from across Europe and presented them as staged readings at Festivals in Tampere, Finland; Graz, Austria and Leeds, UK.
He was Director of writernet, a UK based organisation. Over 15 years he created regional, national and international networks, delivered a wide range of targeted playwright development programmes, co-produced new plays, wrote and published a range of guides, reports and articles on many aspects of the broader theatre writing ecology.

• Visiting Fellow at the Department of Film, Theatre & Television, University of Reading (2017-2020)
• External Assessor for the MA in Scriptwriting, University of East Anglia (2002-2017)
• External Examiner for the BA Drama and Scriptwriting - University of Northumbria (2014-2018)
• Expert Advisor and ex-Trustee at Ambitious About Autism, the national charity for autism education
• Chair of Vital Xposure; previously Vice Chair of ATC and the Playwrights Studio Scotland
• Artistic Associate at Az Theatre
• Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts