Literatur- und Theaterwissenschaftlerin, Tallinn.

Madli Pesti (b. 1980) holds a PhD in theatre research from Tartu University, Estonia (Political Theatre and its Strategies in the Estonian and Western Cultures, 2016). She is currently working as a senior researcher in the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, where she runs the practice-as-research PhD programme. Her research areas are performance analysis and theory, political and applied theatre, and contemporary theatre. In 2018 she published the book 100 Years of Estonian Theatre. She has also been writing theatre reviews since 2002, winning the award as best theatre critic at the Estonian Annual Theatre Awards in 2019. She was head of the Estonian Theatre Researchers’ and Critics’ Association (2015) and curated the programme of the new performing arts centre Open Space (Vaba Lava) in Tallinn between 2015 and 2017.