Annotated Bibliography
This annotated bibliography contains texts that have informed my research and doctoral work to this point and will continue to guide the development of my culminating study. It is organized thematically by categories related to my project. Collectively, this literature represents theoretical, methodological, and field-specific sources that have shaped my understanding of performer well-being, arts-based inquiry, and the institutional contexts of actor training.
Performer Well-Being and Actor Training
Brott, G., Wilson, C., & Brooker, J. (2025). A qualitative study into the psychological effects of acting work among Australian-based actors. Australian Journal of Psychology, 77(1), 2486775.
This qualitative study examines how Australian professional actors experience embodiment, character transition, and psychological regulation across the performance process. Its themes of duality, character release strategies, and psychological well-being provide a strong conceptual foundation for exploring similar dynamics in higher education training environments. Although focused on professional rather than student actors, it directly informs my interest in how performers make meaning of well-being across rehearsal and performance.
Hartley, J. (2024). Towards a trauma informed pedagogy in actor training: Knowledge and agency. Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 15(2), 143–157.
Hartley situates actor training within higher education as a site where well-being, identity, agency, and trauma intersect, arguing for trauma-informed pedagogical approaches that center student positionality and boundaries. This article is among the few that directly addresses actor training environments rather than professional performance contexts, making it foundational to the scholarly gap my study seeks to address. It strengthens my argument that training programs carry institutional and pedagogical responsibility for actor well-being.
Neelands, J. (2009). Acting together: Ensemble as a democratic process in art and life. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 14(2), 173–189.
Neelands examines ensemble practice in theatre as a democratic and relational process, arguing that how artistic communities structure participation, collaboration, and shared responsibility reflects and shapes broader values about care, belonging, and human dignity. This source informs my understanding of how rehearsal and training environments function as sites of relational and institutional meaning-making, not simply as spaces for technical skill development. It connects directly to my culminating study's interest in how the structures surrounding actor training shape how performers experience and make meaning of their well-being.
Robb, A. E., Due, C., & Venning, A. (2018). Exploring psychological wellbeing in a sample of Australian actors. Australian Psychologist, 53(1), 77–86.
This qualitative study uses in-depth interviews to explore the lived experiences of professional actors, identifying environmental and personal factors that influence psychological well-being including autonomy, precariousness, and emotional vulnerability. Its findings regarding the psychological risks actors face provide important context for my study while also highlighting the gap between research on professional actors and research centered on actors in training. The study's use of qualitative interviewing to access actor meaning-making directly informs my own methodological approach.
Szabó, M., Seton, M., Maxwell, I., & Cunningham, M. L. (2022). Psychological well-being of Australian actors and performing artists: Life satisfaction and negative affect. Medical Problems of Performing Artists, 37(2), 106–117.
This large-scale quantitative study provides empirical evidence that actors and performing artists report lower levels of life satisfaction and higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress than the general population. While the study uses quantitative measures rather than qualitative inquiry, its findings establish the broader well-being context within which my study is situated and reinforce the need for research that centers performers' lived experiences. It highlights the gap my study seeks to fill by examining well-being as a dynamic, lived experience rather than a set of measurable symptoms.
Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks
brown, a. m. (2017). Emergent strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. AK Press.
Drawing on principles of emergence, adaptation, and collective practice, brown argues that sustainable change happens through iterative, decentralized processes that prioritize relationship, resilience, and responsiveness over rigid systems and predetermined outcomes. This text informed my thinking about how Performing with Care is designed as an adaptive, living curriculum rather than a fixed program, one that responds to the needs and conditions of the performers and contexts it serves. It also connects to my broader scholarly interest in how care, sustainability, and community can be embedded into artistic and institutional practice rather than treated as afterthoughts.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. University of California Press.
Hochschild introduces the concept of emotional labor, defined as the management of internal emotions to meet the expectations of a professional role, and distinguishes between surface acting and deep acting as two distinct modes of emotional performance. This foundational text provides the primary theoretical framework for my study, offering language for understanding how actors may regulate and manage emotions as part of their performance work. Although not specific to theatre or training environments, emotional labor offers a powerful lens for examining the psychological costs of performance demands on actors in training.
Landy, R. J. (1993). Persona and performance: The Meaning of Role in Drama, Therapy, and Everyday Life. Guilford Press.
Landy's role theory provides a framework for understanding how individuals navigate the complex relationships between personal identity and the roles they inhabit in performance and daily life. This text is relevant to my culminating study because it offers language for examining how actors in training manage the boundary between self and character across rehearsal and performance processes. It also informs the theoretical grounding of Performing with Care, which draws on drama therapy frameworks to support performers in navigating role transition and identity across the arc of a production.
Arts-Based Research, Drama Therapy, and Practice-Led Inquiry
Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Historical Social Research, 36(4), 273–290.
This article provides a foundational overview of autoethnography as a research methodology that integrates personal narrative with scholarly analysis, positioning lived experience as a legitimate and valuable source of knowledge. It informs the self-study component of my culminating study, which incorporates my own positionality as a performer, clinician, and educator as part of the inquiry rather than attempting to bracket it from the research. The framework it offers for understanding the researcher's experience as data rather than bias has been central to how I conceptualize reflexive practice across my doctoral work.
Jones, P. (2007). Drama as Therapy: Theory, Practice, and Research (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Jones provides a comprehensive examination of drama therapy as a field, addressing its theoretical foundations, practical applications, and relationship to embodied experience and therapeutic process. This text informs the design of Performing with Care, particularly its use of embodied practice, ritual, and reflective process as mechanisms for supporting performer well-being. It also situates my clinical training within a broader scholarly tradition that connects dramatic form to psychological health and meaning-making.
Leavy, P. (2015). Method Meets Art: Arts-based Research Practice (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
This text offers practical guidance for implementing arts-based research across a range of methods including narrative inquiry, poetry, music, dance, theatre, and visual art, demonstrating how artistic forms can function as both research methods and modes of dissemination. It directly informed the practice-as-research dimension of my independent study with Professor Joe Salvatore and continues to shape how I think about the arts-based component of my culminating study. It has been particularly relevant to my understanding of how embodied and performative experience can become research material rather than simply context for research.
Leavy, P. (Ed.). (2017). Handbook of Arts-based Research. Guilford Publications.
This comprehensive handbook provides a broad framework for understanding arts-based research across multiple disciplines, positioning artistic practice as a legitimate and rigorous mode of generating knowledge. It informed my understanding of the epistemological foundations of ABR and how embodied, creative, and reflexive approaches can be used to investigate phenomena that resist purely verbal or quantitative methods. It has been central to how I conceptualize the multi-method design of my culminating study and the role of arts-based inquiry within it.
Research Methodology and Positionality
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597.
Braun and Clarke clarify the distinctions between reflexive thematic analysis and other approaches to thematic analysis, emphasizing that reflexive thematic analysis positions the researcher's subjectivity as a resource rather than a threat to validity. This article directly informs the analytical method I am using in my culminating study, where reflexive thematic analysis will be applied to semi-structured interview data to generate themes related to actor well-being in higher education training environments. It has also shaped how I understand the relationship between positionality, interpretation, and rigor in qualitative inquiry more broadly.
Crotty, M. (1998). The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process. SAGE Publications.
Crotty provides a foundational framework for understanding the relationships between epistemology, theoretical perspective, methodology, and methods in research design, arguing that these elements must be coherently aligned for research to be rigorous and credible. This text grounded my understanding of constructivism as an epistemological orientation and helped me articulate why a constructivist framework is appropriate for a study that treats well-being as something actively constructed through experience, context, and meaning-making rather than as an objective condition to be measured. It has been essential to how I understand and can defend the philosophical foundations of my research design.
Yip, S. Y. (2024). Positionality and reflexivity: Negotiating insider-outsider positions within and across cultures. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 47(3), 222–232.
Yip argues that researcher positionality is not fixed or binary but fluid, shifting across the research process depending on the researcher's experiences, knowledge, and relationship to the context being studied. This framework directly informs how I understand my own position as a practitioner-researcher who is simultaneously an insider and an outsider in relation to the actor training environments I am studying. It shapes my commitment to reflexivity as an ongoing methodological practice rather than a one-time disclosure.