Anke Charton is Associate Professor of Theatre. She studied Theatre Studies and German Philology at the universities of Leipzig, Bologna and Berkeley and holds a PhD from Leipzig University, obtained through a study on gender representation in opera (prima donna, primo uomo, musico, published Leipzig 2012), and the venia docendi for Theatre and Cultural Studies from the University of Vienna (2024).

She has been a Lecturer with Leipzig University and with the Detmold University of Music/University of Paderborn, and has previously held positions as Research Associate at the School of Music and Theatre Hamburg and as postdoctoral assistant at the University of Vienna.
She is vice-president of the Association for Theatre Studies (Gesellschaft für Theaterwissenschaft (gtw)), has consulted as an External Examiner with the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Malta (2016-2018) and has served as Vice Director of Studies at tfm Vienna (2016-2020). Currently, she sits on the board of Jahrbuch Musik & Gender and the Joint Research Network Elfriede Jelinek.

Her work is centered at the intersection of Theatre/Performance Studies, Musicology, and Gender Studies, pursuing research in Theatre Historiography and Theory as well as Voice History and Music Theatre. Recent publications include papers on migration, agency and queerness, gendered vocal aesthetics, and the emerging language of theatre in Early Modern Spain.

From 2020-2023, she led a research project on Siglo de Oro theatre culture and its narratives, funded by an Elise Richter Grant of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

Performance Cultures (esp. Early Modern Age)

Theatre Historiography

Voice and Music Theatre

Gender Studies & Intersectionality/Interdependences

Power Asymmetries and Abuse in the Performing Arts

Vice-Director of Studies, SPL17