Stephen Murphy

Since arriving in Bristol in 2019, Stephen has passionately engaged with Bristol community-based, creative non-profits, most recently with the Creative Youth Network. In these past four years Stephen has held roles that allowed them to develop their skills in and passion for ethical performance practice. As an Equalities Officer, Stephen assisted and led initiatives with different society networks to improve the society’s inclusivity practices. These initiatives required collecting and revising feedback from students, developing relationships with other societies and networks, and working with other societies to promote inclusive and accessible practices within performing art societies in general. One of the outcomes they are most proud of is collaborating with the University’s Disability and Accessibility Network to co-develop inclusive policies that would make our performances more accessible to neurodivergent and disabled students.

Stephen found opportunities to develop their performance practice skills both within and outside of his BA (Hons) Theatre and Performance Studies degree. Outside of classes, Stephen found opportunities to lead improvisation workshops for both novices and veterans of the form. Stephen thoroughly enjoyed assisting in the development of course-members’ improvisation skills and seeing their lives improve in turn. These opportunities have also allowed Stephen to further develop their theoretical and practical knowledge on improvisation and the teaching of it, valuable experience that Stephen applies to his work for Charcoalblue.