Cate Blanchett has been appointed as the next Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at St Catherine's College, Oxford, for the next academic year. For more than thirty years, the Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professorship has brought internationally significant figures from theatre, film and performance into direct dialogue with students and the wider University community, including Sir Ian McKellen, Adjoa Andoh and Sir Stephen Fry.
Commenting on her appointment, Cate Blanchett, said: "Art breaks down the borders and boundaries of our imagination; it poses questions, and playing with and dissecting it expands and challenges our present reality. My years of creative practice have granted me the opportunity of sharpening feelings into ideas and offered pathways to insight. The visiting professorship is an electrifying opportunity for me to be in direct, robust creative dialogue with the next generation of thinkers and creative Doers. I look forward to beginning this creative rumpus."
Jude Kelly, Master of St Catherine’s College, said in turn: "Cate Blanchett is one of the most important and influential artistic voices working today, not only through the extraordinary breadth of her work across theatre and screen, but through her longstanding commitment to cultural dialogue, collaboration and public engagement. The Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professorship exists to bring world-leading practitioners into meaningful conversation with students, academics and audiences, and Cate’s appointment represents a hugely exciting next chapter in that story."
My thoughts are that there will be many more students attending those classes! Afterall, Blanchett is widely considered captivating due to her ethereal, unconventional beauty, striking confidence, and commanding screen presence. She effortlessly balances bold elegance with immense talent across diverse film and stage roles. Moreover, she's a beloved queer icon largely due to her critically acclaimed performances as complex sapphic characters, her fluid approach to sexuality in real life, and the powerful, unapologetic authenticity she projects on and off screen.
She defines woke gobbledygook and ultra left idiocies. God help the students. And her husband, Andrew Upton, has destroyed more good plays, including the most crass 'reimagining' of Chekov that had audiences weeping in their seats.
