Veronica Baxter

Veronica Baxter is a South African theatre and performance lecturer, researcher, director and performer.

Biography

Born in 1963 in Lady Frere/Cacadu in the Eastern Cape, South Africa to South African and British parents.

Grew up on a trading station and in Queenstown. Attended school Queenstown Convent, Balmoral Primary and Queenstown girls High School, Queenstown. Read arts/humanities at the University of Natal, Durban. Graduated with BA majoring in Drama, English, an Honours in Drama, and research MA in Culture and Media Studies, conducting practice as research in SA worker theatre in KZN, devising the Clover Worker’s Story.

In this period she served two terms on the NUSAS affiliated SRC, as arts and culture representative, and then as the NUSAS Projects Officer. Active inaugural member of the Drama Society, including running week long theatre courses.

Spent 1996 at the Tisch School of Performance, New York University doing a workshop on Theatre of the Oppressed with Augusto Boal.

Completed a Ph.D. on theatre, education and aesthetics with the Theatre and Media for Development Unit at Winchester/Southampton University, England, supervised by Tim Prentki and Dave Pammenter.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

She has taught at South African and English universities for 25 years, focusing on applied theatre and drama, directing, theatre history and South African theatre.

Teaching

1998 – Jun 2009: Drama and Performance Studies, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg

Oct 2009 – Dec 2010: Warwick University

Sep 2010 – Dec 2011: University of Leeds

Since Jan 2012 : The University of Cape Town, South Africa, where she is the convenor of the Honours programme and the Masters in Applied .

Research and publications

As a theatre and performance researcher, her interests are arts based research and pedagogy, applied drama/theatre specialist, with a special interest in documenting through scholarly writing about South African theatre.

Manages and runs a very useful and important distribution list for information on theatre and performance activities and opportunities in South Africa at veronica.baxter@uct.ac.za.

Author of an article called "The Theatre Makers in One Person Format", published in Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer and Greg Homann (editors). The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.

Co-editor (with Katharine E. Low) of Applied Theatre: Performing Health and Wellbeing (Bloomsbury Methuen, 2017) The volume includes several articles and introductions written or co-written by her.