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Research area(s)

• British Alternative Theatre and Outdoor Performance Histories, Politics, and Practices
• Theatre Historiography
• Gender and Sexuality
• Musical Theatre
• Student Experience and Educational Settings

Research Interests

Dr. Peterson maintains diverse research interests, including alternative theatre histories, musical theatre studies, gender and sexuality studies, theatre historiography, and the student experience in educational settings.

His postgraduate work at UCLA involved ethnographic fieldwork as a go-go dancer, using qualitative methods to explore shifts in gender and choreography in the face of HIV/AIDS and homophobia in dance clubs from 1970 to 2010. This research has been featured in two journal articles and two book chapters. His doctoral research offered a historiographical revision of British alternative theatre, with portions published in Research in Drama Education: Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance and additional chapters appearing in British Theatre Companies: 1968-1979 and Flower/Power: British Literature in Transition.

Dr. Peterson is currently developing a monograph on historical and contemporary interventionist street theatre practices in England, exploring the political and cultural impacts of these practices from the 1960s to the present. His recent and upcoming articles include ‘Moore to Theatre History: Queer Historiography and the Partnership of John Henry Moore and Jim Haynes as Foundational to British Alternative Performance Practices’, appearing in Contemporary Theatre Review in December 2024, and ‘AI Will Reprise Us: Performance and Recasting the Academy’, examining the implications of artificial intelligence on theatre and academia, also for Contemporary Theatre Review.

His work on student experiences in higher education is reflected in multiple co-authored publications, including ‘The Internet: History 2.0?’ with Professor Jacky Bratton in The Cambridge Companion to Theatre History and ‘'Democratising Singing: Teaching Musical Theatre to a Mixed-Ability Higher Education Cohort’ with Dr. Broderick Chow in Theatre, Dance and Performance Training. He has also collaborated with an undergraduate student on forthcoming article, ‘Harmonising Neurodiversity in Musical Theatre Training: A Teacher-Student Dialogue’.

As principal investigator, Dr. Peterson led a Fapesp-funded partnership with the University of Campinas in Brazil alongside Professor Larissa de Oliveira Neves, focusing on historiographical explorations of marginalised theatre practices and cultural exchanges between Great Britain and Brazil. He also served as sponsor and mentor for Professor Neves during her subsequent Fapesp-funded research fellowship at СʪÃÃÊÓƵ.