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Karl McIntyre

Drama and Theatre Studies, De Montfort University

Thesis title:

When I am Old, I shall Wear Purple Nail Varnish: Utilising performance art to construct queer spaces that celebrate and advocate for ageing bodies

My research explores the increasing commodification, sanitisation, and youth fixation of LGBTQ+ events. The PhD will model radically re-imagined safe queer spaces that advocate for frequently excluded or denigrated ageing bodies. This thesis will work in dialogue with Edelman’s No Future (2004), and Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure (2011), These texts offer potent subversive, agentive futures of queerness and ageing, which my practice research seeks to manifest through the disciplines of cabaret and performance art.

Research Area

  • Drama and Theatre Studies

Publications

Studies in Theatre and Performance: ‘Queer communities, friendship, and moments of wonder in Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World competition’  (2024)

Conferences

2024

I’m Coming Back Out: Seeking new and forgotten pleasures in gay middle age, 
International Federation for Theatre Research conference Manila 2024, 15 Juky 20204, University of the Philipines, Diliman.





2022

Queer Communities forged through Andrew Logan's Alternative Miss World Competition, Borderlines IX: Seeking Solidarity and Wonder Through Performance (Panel 1: Agentive Relations with Self and Other), 30th June 2022, De Montfort University, 

Public Engagement & Impact

  • As creative director and choreographer of the physical theatre in education company, Theatrication, I have worked with young performers to explore issues of identity and gender in relation to the experiences of young people.

Other Research Interests

  • Autobiographical performance
  • Multimedia Performance
  • Immersive Performance
  • Queer Theory 
  • Physical Theatre