My research interest in women’s theatre history springs from my first career as a professional actress in television and theatre. I have published on the work of the actress/playwright in late-seventeenth, eighteenth and early-nineteenth century popular theatre and am particularly interested in exploring historically distant plays and performance via practice-based research. Manchester University Press are currently preparing my latest book for publication which focuses on the work of nineteenth-century actress/manager Frances Maria Kelly and will contain a fully annotated edition of Kelly’s previously unpublished one-woman performance Dramatic Recollections (1832) preceded by a new performance biography of this fascinating female practitioner (forthcoming 2011). This project, along with a co-edited collection of plays and monologues by women (co-edited with Professor Maggie Gale, forthcoming MUP) furthers my ongoing interest in autobiographical performance, the one-woman show, and the powerful medium of solo performance from the nineteenth-century stage to today’s comedy clubs and television screens.