As a teacher and theatre practitioner, Sherrill is committed to developing anti-oppressive practices for dramatic training. She focuses on intervening in teaching methods and repertoire that tacitly accept or more vigorously reproduce restrictively ableist, androcentric, classist, Eurocentric, and heterocentric worldviews. Drawing on feminist pedagogies and performance practices, her work explores the politics of identity in acting and musical theatre training.
Sherrill holds a PhD from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Her doctoral thesis rethinks performer training through practice-led projects and demonstrates how patriarchal narratives and practices operating in dramatic training and rehearsal processes can be destabilised and revised. She articulates how the theoretical and political reframing of musical theatre in conservatoire training contexts can support the development of experiential knowledge that equips artists to resist the form’s conservative tendencies and moves towards a more liberatory culture of performer training.
