Dr Matt Lockitt

Biography

Dr Matt Lockitt is Senior Lecturer in Musical Theatre. He holds a PhD (Research Theatre and Performance) from Monash University, Australia. His dissertation, The Musical Is Drama: Apollonian and Dionysian Dynamics, and Liminal Ruptures in the Contemporary Musical Theatre, explores the dramaturgy of why characters may speak, sing, and/or dance within a given dramatic circumstance. He also received a Graduate Diploma of Theatre and a Bachelor of Performing Arts, first class honours, from Monash. 

As a director Matthew is specifically interested in the creation and development of new musical theatre writing. Over the last four years he has led drama students, in collaboration with composition students, through a process of creating an original musical resulting in productions of Metamorphoses (2015), Sticks and Stones (2014), and Aesop’s Fables (2013). He has contributed to both the book and lyrics of each of these projects.  Before relocating from Australia Matt instigated and contributed as dramaturg to an electronic musical adaptation of Everyman, including the lyrics to the opening number, “Every Man”. 

Publications include: “‘Love, Let Me Sing You’: The Liminality of Song and Dance in LaChiusa’s Bernarda Alba” (2014), and “‘Proposition’: To reconsinder the non-singing character and the songless moment” (2012), and the co-authored article “The Uncertain Musical: An Experiment in Performance as Research as Pedagogy” with Stuart Grant and Abigail Egan. 

Areas of expertise

• American and Australian musical theatre
• Dramaturgy
• New Musical Theatre?

Publications

Book chapters

• Lockitt, M. (2019). "Chart-Toppers to Showstoppers: Pop Artists Scoring the Broadway Stage". The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical. Ed. Jessica Sternfeld and Elizabeth L. Wollman. Routledge: New York. 
• ?Lockitt, M. (2014). "'Love, Let Me Sing You': The Liminality of Song and Dance in LaChiusa's Bernarda Alba", Gestures of Music Theatre: The Performativity of Song and Dance, Ed. Dominic Symonds and Millie Taylor, Oxford University Press: New York.?

Articles

• ??Lockitt, M. (2012). "'Proposition': To reconsider the non-singing character and the songless moment", Studies in Musical Theatre, Intellect, 6.2, pp 187-198.
• Grant, S., Lockitt, M., Egan, A. K. (2010). "The Uncertain Musical: An Experiment in Performance as Research as Pedagogy". Australasian Drama Studies, 57, pp 82-98.?

Reviews

• ??Lockitt, M. (2013). "Review: Musical Theatre, Realism and Entertainment, Millie Taylor, Ashgate, Surrey, UK. (2012)". Studies in Musical Theatre, Intellect, Bristol, UK.?

Other publications

• ??Lockitt, M. "Banquet of Secrets: Australian Musical Theatre Comes of Age".
• The Conversation. March 4th. Web. (2016)
• ?Anu, C. "Has Australian Musical Theatre Come of Age". Evenings with
  Christine Anu. 702 ABC Radio, Sydney. 8th March, 9pm. (2016)?

Conferences

• "'Say it anyway you can': Challenging the stratification of speech, song, and dance in the musical theatre". International Federation of Theatre Research, Warwick University, United Kingdom. (2014).
• "'Tell me what you feel': Metaphysical Collaborative Forces in the Contemporary Musical Play". Song, Stage, Screen VI, The University of Missouri, Kansas City, United States of America. (2011).
• "I Sing Therefore I Am" . Song, Stage, Screen V, The University of Winchester, Winchester, United Kingdom. (2010)
• "'Popular': The Art of Playing It Safe", at The Australasian Drama Studies Association (ADSA) Conference, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. (2009)

Invited talks

• ?"When You Dance Through A Storm: Innovation and Integration in Oklahoma!". Rodgers and Hammerstein: Understanding the Phenomenon, Symposium to launch the Australian Centre for Music Theatre Research and Development, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne University, Australia. (2012)