Why would anyone do a PhD in theatre?

iPhoto caption: Photo by Robert Motum

Artist Perspectives

/By Robert Motum / Aug 7, 2024

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When I tell people I’m completing a PhD in theatre, I receive a variety of responses. Most often, there’s a followup question about the specifics of my dissertation topic, and I’ll share the 30-second elevator pitch for the project. Other times these questions require a slightly more involved answer. In the past few weeks, I’ve been asked: “So… you want to be an actor?,” “What is a PhD in theatre?,” and “Why would anyone do that?”

As I enter the final months of my degree at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, I look toward a prospective academic job market still reeling from the pandemic. In an industry where stagnant government funding and tuition freezes have contributed to increasingly rigorous competition for fewer full-time positions, I’ve found myself reflecting on that last question: why do a PhD in theatre today?

The challenges facing recent PhD graduates aren’t new. Depressing statistics about the industry are a Google search away, and I wasn’t naive to them when I began my degree six years ago. In its recent report on the PhD labour market, the Council of Canadian Academies warned that “the number of PhD graduates is growing while the number of open tenure-track positions is stagnant or declining,” and that “non-academic sectors have not significantly increased their uptake of PhD graduates.” 

For those who hope to teach or research professionally, tenure-track positions are few and far between, and often involve relocating to another province or country. And in my field specifically, a 2021 report from the Canadian Association for Theatre Research’s emerging scholars task force highlighted the increasing job precarity for graduates with terminal theatre degrees and noted that post-PhD work often involves juggling multiple part-time contracts or low-paying sessional teaching gigs to sustain academic careers.

Yet, despite the statistics and precarity, I entered my degree knowing that the opportunity to pursue a PhD is simply an incredible privilege. Providing a living-ish wage (nothing to scoff at in the city these days), the degree affords something exceedingly rare: time. 

A PhD is an opportunity to spend five to six years thinking, writing, researching, and creating work. It offers the space and resources to immerse oneself in a specific topic, theory, or practice; and to work alongside some of our country’s most recognized artists and academics while doing so. In a fast-paced world bent on productivity and immediate outcomes, a PhD can offer the space to slow down and meditate on a topic. And given the fact that I’ve written parts of my dissertation in cafés, on patios, at the Art Gallery of Ontario, at the Toronto Reference Library, and even while travelling, the time provided by a PhD provides an attractive flexibility.

Maybe this is all reason enough? Being paid to learn, think, and write, all while having access to an endless number of workshops, classes, and events, doesn’t sound like a terrible way to spend a few years.

Still, every doctoral journey is unique, and every PhD candidate will approach the degree with their own myriad of shifting and evolving reasons and “whys.” And so, in preparation for this article (and like a good researcher), I interviewed a few of my colleagues about the value of a PhD in theatre.

In my conversation with York University’s Morgan Anderson — who documents the journey of her performance PhD on YouTube, racking up millions of views — she centred the “hard skills” of the degree, explaining that “from organizational and project management skills, to grant writing, teaching, and the ability to clearly communicate complex ideas… the PhD is helping me become the person I want to be.” Of course, writing the 200-300-page dissertation can be quite a solitary and isolating experience, but it’s also a journey filled with scholarly, artistic, and personal growth.

At the same time, PhD projects tend to look outside themselves and locate their value and impact through their support of broader communities. Dr. Jessica Watkin, a recent graduate from my program at U of T, considers her time spent in the PhD as in service to Toronto’s theatre ecology. Referencing her work in Disability dramaturgy and accessible practices, she said, “most professionals in the industry don’t have the time to do five… six… seven years of intensive research, and I think that’s where PhDs can add value to the broader industry.”

Often viewed as a purely theoretical endeavour, those outside of academia sometimes miss the practical applications of a PhD. (It’s understandable — you probably don’t write that many pages without doing a fair amount of theorizing.) But, as with Jessica’s work, I can point to the practicality and community impact of the dissertations of many of my friends and colleagues.

Furthermore, sometimes the “why” of a PhD is incredibly urgent. For instance, Dr. Sarah Robbins’ timely work rethinks actor training practices in Canada by introducing equity-based frameworks; and PhD candidate Funmilola Cole’s project seeks to “urgently fill in the gaps” and “correct the record” of acting and applied theatre in Africa. In my conversation with Funmilola, she explained that the work of the PhD and her love of research have “given her a larger purpose.” For her, the PhD is work that needs to be done and it’s work “that keeps [her] going.”

Many of these reasons resonate with my own. My dissertation project, Scripted Borders: Performing Nation and Community in Micronationhood, uses performance to unpack an increasingly complicated question: what is a nation? Through the project I’ve found a passion for performance research, a relevant urgency and purpose within the work of the dissertation itself, and — through collaborating with practitioners and scholars around the world — a wider sense of community.

So, why would anyone do a PhD in theatre? For the love of the art form. For a desire to support others, the theatre industry, or to change the landscape of post-secondary theatre education itself. Or, maybe, the PhD is simply a nice, paying, job that lets you spend some time meditating on a specific topic. In response to my driving question, the director of U of T’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, Dr. Kathleen Gallagher, echoed the above and concluded by asking, “Why not a PhD in theatre?”

I expect that as I move on from graduate school, these reasons and “whys” will continue to shift; but despite the statistics, precarity, and the odd question from a stranger about my life choices, I have no regrets about spending six years thinking, writing, and creating — surrounded by inspiring colleagues and friends. 

(Oh! And I still get student discounts.)

WRITTEN BY

Robert Motum

Holding an MA in Performance from Aberystwyth University (Wales), Robert has published on his theatre practice in Theatre Research in Canada, Canadian Theatre Review, and in edited collections from Palgrave Macmillan and Routledge. His SSHRC-funded PhD at the University of Toronto's CDTPS examines site-specificity and notions of nationhood. Robert teaches at Sheridan College and UofT’s Rotman School of Management.

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