Kevin Quarmby
London and Stratford-on-Avon reviewer
Dr Kevin Quarmby is an academic, writer and actor who first appeared onstage in the early 1970s. After several years with companies as diverse the National Theatre, the Old Vic and Lindsay Kemp, he entered academe, completing his PhD in Shakespeare at King’s College London where he also taught English Renaissance Literature.
Quarmby is an active participant in Shakespeare and New Media conferences held as far apart as Seattle, Chicago and Kolkata. His academic and commercial publications appear regularly in the USA and UK. Quarmby's book, The Disguised Ruler in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries published by Ashgate in March 2012, offers an alternative historical construct for this unusual motif, tracing its heritage in medieval literature and folk culture.
In 2011, Quarmby was named Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Claus M Halle Institute for Global Learning, and holds the title 'Shakespeare Performance Specialist in Virtual Residence' at Emory University Atlanta. With his colleague, Sheila T Cavanagh, he also co-directs the 'World Shakespeare Project', a pedagogical venture linking Atlanta and London with a worldwide academic community. With the Rose Theatre Kingston as its UK base, the 'World Shakespeare Project' unites students and faculty in India and North Africa with their counterparts in the USA and UK.
Quarmby is also a Globe Education Lecturer at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, and presents undergraduate courses on Shakespeare and Contemporary British Theatre for several London-based American universities, including Florida State University. In the summer, he teaches the Emory University British Studies Program at Regent's Park College, Oxford. Quarmby brings his academic knowledge and practitioner’s eye to theatre reviewing.
As an ‘insider’, he recognizes the problems faced by actors, directors and designers, as well as the need to communicate the ‘essence’ of a production for those unable to see, or thinking of seeing, that most ephemeral of artistic experiences, a play.