Matthew Randle-Bent

Matthew Randle-Bent is a theatre scholar and artist. His research focuses on the artistic and intellectual legacies of international performance festivals of the 1970s, many of which were sponsored by the International Theatre Institute. In particular, his current work focuses on the ITI’s Third World theatre committee, that hosted festivals in the Philippines, Iran, France, and the GDR during that decade. This work highlights unfinished histories of radical performance, as well as the transnational foundations of performance theory between what was known as the “Second” and “Third” worlds. Matthew is from Gloucestershire, in the United Kingdom, where he attended his local state comprehensive school. His undergraduate degree is from Warwick University, Master’s from Queen Mary, University of London, and he is currently completing his PhD at Northwestern University. His most recent artistic work was as dramaturg on I,Banquo at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; in 2022 he will be an artist in residence at The Watermill Center. His writing has been published in Contemporary Theatre Review, caa.reviews and Theatre Journal.

Degrees

• BA (Hons), Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Warwick
• MA, Theatre and Performance, Queen Mary, University of London
• PhD [Expected 2022], Theatre and Drama, Northwestern University