Frank Camilleri is Professor of Theatre Studies and Artistic Director of Icarus Performance Project (Malta). He served as Head of Department of Theatre Studies in 2004-08 and 2013-17, as well as Director of the School of Performing Arts in 2015-19. He was Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at the University of Kent in 2008-13; and Visiting Professor in Theatre and Performance at the University of Huddersfield in 2013-14.
He has worked with John Schranz (1989-2003), Ingemar Lindh (1994-1997), and Lech Raczak (1994, 1996). In 2001 he founded Icarus Performance Project (Malta), a research laboratory group that focuses on performance processes and actor training techniques. In 2007 he co-founded Icarus Publishing Enterprise with Odin Teatret and the Grotowski Institute with the aim of publishing English translations of texts by laboratory practitioners and scholars.
In the course of his activity in theatre Camilleri developed a way of relating to the work of the actor based on a study of elaboration of acrobatics, plastiques, martial arts, dance, and mime. He has also developed a vocal training regimen which evolved from the work on physical actions. He has performed, delivered workshops, given papers and demonstrations in various European contexts since 1994.
Camilleri has published articles on theatre as laboratory in TDR-The Drama Review; Contemporary Theatre Review; New Theatre Quarterly; Performance Research; Theatre, Dance and Performance Training; and Studies in Theatre and Performance.
With Paul Allain and Stacie Lee Bennett he has co-edited the audio-visual resource PATAZ: Physical Actor Training – An Online A-Z (Drama Online 2018): https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/physical-actor-training.
He is the author of *Performer Training Reconfigured: Post-Psychophysical Perspectives for the Twenty-first Century* (Bloomsbury, 2019) and *Performer Training for Actors and Athletes* (Bloomsbury, 2023).
PhD • ‘The Body Politics of Acting in the Context of Training and the Performance Industry: Perspectives from Contemporary Britain’ (University of Kent) • ‘Institutet för Scenkonst – An Analysis of its Past and Present Practice: 1971 - 2013: Investigating Improvisation Processes in Performance’ (University of Malta) • ‘Transforming Everyday Life: The Political Struggles of Amateur Theatres, Meyerhold and Stanislavsky’ (University of Malta) • ‘Vocal Actions: Channelling Impulse Through Form in Training Towards Performance’; Practice as Research PhD (University of Kent) • ‘The Difference Butoh Makes: A Practice as Research Investigation of Butoh for Training and Performance’; Practice as Research PhD (University of Kent)
MPhil •‘Opera and Modern Stage Practice: An Analysis of the Contexts and Performance Process of Robert Wilson’s Madama Butterfly’ (University of Malta)
MA (Research) • Danza di Spade: The Sword as Tool for Actor Training’ (University of Malta) • ‘Writing with the Body: Exploring Écriture Féminine in the Theatre Practice of Ariane Mnouchkine’ (University of Malta) • ‘A Fluid Variable: An Analysis of Femininity and the Female in Shakespeare’s Plays’ (University of Malta) • ‘The Story of Imam Hussein: A Cross-cultural Experiment Inspired by Ta’ziyeh’; Practice as Research MA (University of Kent) • ‘Narrative and Beyond: Photography as a Medium for the Analysis of Perception and Meaning within the Actor/Spectator Relationship’ (University of Malta) • ‘Research Theatre in Contemporary Europe: An Analysis of the Means of Continuation’ (University of Malta) • ‘The Semiotics of Samuel Beckett’s Drama’ (University of Malta) • ‘The Way of the Pilgrim and Stories of Other Foreigners: A Dialogue between the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and the Art of the Actor’ (University of Malta)
