About

Holly Maples

An academic, freelance theatre director, and actor, Holly Maples has acted in and directed productions in the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom.  She is currently Senior Lecturer of Theatre and Director of Postgraduate Research at East 15 School of Acting, University of Essex.

Holly completed her BA in Acting at Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and her Master’s degree in theatre studies at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. She has worked as an actor and director in Chicago, New York City, Dublin and London. She has won awards for her performance work including the Jane Cowell Memorial Trust Award, the University of Essex Award for Excellence in Research Impact, and participated in the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and the Harvard Mellon School of Performance and Theater Research.

Holly received her PhD in theatre from the Trinity College Dublin.  Her research examines the performance of collective identity in times of social change. Her book, Culture War: Conflict, Commemoration and the Contemporary Abbey Theatre, was published in the Reimagining Ireland series by Peter Lang in 2012. She has articles examining a wide range of performance practice including dance theatre, American social dance, heritage performance, audience studies, American, and Irish Studies.

From 2007-2014 Holly worked as a lecturer in drama at the University of East Anglia. There, she taught dramatic literature, critical theory, acting, directing, and theatre for social change for undergraduate and post-graduate students. At UEA she was co-course leader of the MA in Theatre Directing and the MA in Theatre for Development. In 2014, she moved to Brunel University London, where she continues to teach across all spectrum of performance practice and theory. Prior to teaching in the United Kingdom, Holly taught at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Michigan Ann Arbor.  

Holly also has worked on drama and community development projects with both asylum seekers and at risk youth in Sri Lanka, Switzerland, the United States and Northern Ireland. While living in Dublin, she also worked as a performance facilitator with new immigrant groups for the Dublin St Patrick’s Festival and the Festival of World Cultures. She also has directed productions for the Dublin Fringe Festival and Dublin Festival of World Cultures involving cross cultural youth theatre groups.  

Holly particularly enjoys radically transforming the classics and theatrical adaptation, using imagist embodied performance to draw new light on old stories. Her most recent work includes an adaptation of Madame Bovary for the Hopeful Festival in London, a two part, 9 hour adaptation of Jane Eyre with University of East Anglia students, as well as a site specific rendition of Charles L. Mee’s Big Love.  She is also interested in directing new works by solo performers and ensemble based companies.  

Outside of theatre, Holly enjoys singing opera, discovering forgotten museums, and exploring the world.