Dr James Lovelock PhD, BMus
Lecturer in Acting and Performance
About
I am an academic and practitioner with over twenty years of teaching experience. I trained as an improviser with Alan Marriott, and have appeared as an actor and musician with some of the UK's leading improvisation companies including Showstopper - The Improvised Musical, Music Box and Monkey Toast. As a producer, I founded Baron Sternlook's Improvised Musical and produced shows in London, Birmingham and Edinburgh.
My main research interest is representation in musical theatre, film and television, and I host REPRESENT - the queer musical theatre podcast as part of my research. I am the web manager for www.queermusicals.com and I am currently writing a book on LGBTQ+ characters and queer representation in contemporary musicals for Methuen Drama. I recently received a grant from the British Academy Early Career Researchers Network to explore the concept of queer gain in queer-infused musical theatre.
My teaching expertise includes acting technique, voice acting, new work and writing/devising. I am an experienced director and musical director, and I have supervised four students at PhD level.
I am passionate about equity, equality, diversity and inclusion and am happy to share my lived experience as a gay, non-binary person living with ulcerative colitis and generalised anxiety disorder. I believe that everyone has an important story to tell, and I aim to promote this in my teaching, research and practice.
Teaching
Sheffield Creative Industries Institute
College of Social Sciences and Arts
Acting and Performance
BA (Hons) Acting and Performance
The Actor's Toolkit: Body, Space, Text
Creative Collaboration
Advanced Acting Showcase
Future Now Festival
Research
- Culture and Creativity Research Institute
LGBTQ+ characters and queer representation in contemporary musical theatre (book project - Methuen Drama)
Queer gain in queer-infused musical theatre practice (British Academy Early Career Researchers Network small grant funded project)
British Academy Early Career Researchers Network Seed Fund
Publications
Journal articles
Lovelock, J. (2025). Contemporary British Musicals: ‘Out of the Darkness’, Clare Chandler and Gus Gowland (eds) (2024). Studies in Musical Theatre, 19 (1), 95-98. http://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00187_5
Lovelock, J.M. (2014). Using the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid in Sociological Studies. Journal of Bisexuality, 14 (3-4), 457-467. http://doi.org/10.1080/15299716.2014.946197
Book chapters
Lovelock, J. (2019). 'What About Love?': claiming and re-claiming LGBTQ+ spaces in 21st century musical theatre. In Whitfield, S.K. (Ed.) Reframing the Musical Race, Culture and Identity. Bloomsbury Publishing
Books
Lovelock, J., Whitfield, S., & ap Sion, P. (2021). AS/A Level Music - Rock and Pop, Musical Theatre and Jazz. Atebol Cyfyngedig.
Theses / Dissertations
Lovelock, J. (2017). 'Not Just For Gays Anymore' - men, masculinity and musical theatre. (Doctoral thesis). Supervised by Rodmell, P.
Other activities
Chair of the Accessibility and Inclusion sub-committee, International Society for the Study of Musical Theatre
Editorial Board Member, Studies in Musical Theatre (Intellect Publishing)
External Examiner - BA (Hons) Musical Theatre at York St John University
Postgraduate supervision
Writing non-binary characters for contemporary musical theatre (Nathan Shanley, the University of Wolverhampton, expected completion June 2027)
The trans-masculine experience in musical theatre (Ashton Collard, the University of Wolverhampton, expected completion July 2026)
Hypertextuality in the Diegesis of the Megamusical: The Aesthetic and Cognitive Relationship Between Silent Era Film and Contemporary Musical Theatre (Brandon Meers, the University of Wolverhampton, April 2023)