Expert List
Here is our annually updated ATDS Experts List. If you are still searching for another member for your dissertation committee, this resource may help. Please use the information these scholars have kindly provided in a thoughtful way.
The areas of interest below include an extraordinary range of topics:
Actor training, African American theatre, American Cultural Studies, Asian American theatre, Avant-Garde Drama, Chautauqua, Circus, Diasporic theatre, Dramaturgy, Early American Theatre, Federal Theatre Project, Feminist Theatre, Frontier theatre, Gay and Lesbian theatre history and performance, Gender and Performance, Intercultural Theatre, Jewish theatre, Labor Theatre, Latino theatre, Melodrama, Mexican Theatre, Minstrelsy, Modernism, Musical theatre, Playwrights and Directors (Glaspell, Fornes, Kushner, Mamet, Mee, Miller, O’Neill, Parks, Shepard, Treadwell, Valdez, Wasserstein, Wilder, Williams, Wilson), Political theatre, Popular Entertainments, Religion and Theatre, Theatre Historiography, Theatre for Young Audiences, Transnational Theatre, Vaudeville, and Women’s theatre.
(You may want to use the terms provided above, or other terms to search the list for experts who match your areas of interest.)
Dr. Susan Abbotson
Professor, Department of English
Rhode Island College
401 456 2803
sabbotson@ric.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION:
Modern and Contemporary Drama
Women’s Theatre
Arthur Miller
Tennessee Williams
William Inge
August Wilson
Vivian Appler, PhD
Associate Professor
College of Charleston
applervr@cofc.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Science and Performance
Practice as Research
Devised and Physical Theatre
Puppetry and Mask
Feminist Performance
Seventeenth-Century Drama
Aphra Behn
Margaret Cavendish
Rosemarie Bank
Professor Emeritus
Kent State University
rbank@kent.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION:
Long nineteenth-century U.S. theatre history
World’s fairs
Show Indians
Wild west shows
Frontier dramas
Museums
Anthropology
Intellectual history
Historiography
Jane Barnette
Associate Professor, Theatre
Department of Theatre & Dance
University of Kansas
jane@ku.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Dramaturgy
Adaptation in Theatre
Gender and Performance
Witches and Witchcraft representation on the American stage and screen
Theatre Historiography
Sarah Bay-Cheng, Professor and Chair
Department of Theater and Dance
Bowdoin College
sbaycheng@bowdoin.edu
207-725-3419
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Modern drama
Media and performance
Film history
Avant-garde
Contemporary American performance
Michael Y. Bennett
Associate Professor of English; affiliated faculty in Philosophy
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
bennettm@uww.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Absurd drama and theatre
19th-21st c. European drama and theatre
19th-21st c. American drama and theatre
Theatre and Philosophy (a.k.a. Performance Philosophy)
Oscar Wilde
Edward Albee
Eugene O’Neill
Christian Bell
christianbell.phd@gmail.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Performance Theory
Native American Theatre and Performance
Climate Change/Ecocriticism
Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed
Ethics and Community-Based Practice
Henry Bial
Professor of Theatre & Dance
University of Kansas
785-864-6158
hbial@ku.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Jewish representation on the American stage and screen since 1900
Performance theory
Religion and theatre
Theatre Historiography
Musical Theatre History
Cheryl Black
Professor of Theatre
University of Missouri Columbia
573 882 0530
Blackc@missouri.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Women in Theatre
Feminist theatre and drama
Feminist criticism
The Provincetown Players (esp. Susan Glaspell)
African American theatre and drama
Workers Theatre in the U.S.
Acting/Acting Pedagogy
Dramaturgy
Sara Boland-Taylor
Doctoral Student, Department of Theatre
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
bolandt2@illinois.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Shakespeare
Adaptation
Preganancy and Performance
Women’s and Feminist Theatre
Jane Brody
Jbrody845@gmail.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Auditioning
Acting theories
Archetype as related to actors and story
Neuroscience of acting
Career planning for actors
Annalisa Brugnoli
PhD, American Studies
University of Venice (Italy)
annalisa.brugnoli@yahoo.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Eugene O’Neill
Modernism in American Drama
Philosophical and psychoanalityc issues in American Drama (the Shadow, the Other, the “Medusation”)
David Carlyon
Independent Scholar
carlyon123@me.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Circus
Physical Comedy
19th-century theater and politics
Broadway producing and practice
Jonathan Chambers
Professor of Theatre
Department of Theatre and Film
Bowling Green State University
419 372-9618
jonathc@bgsu.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
American Theater and Drama between the World Wars
Theatre and the political/cultural left
Marxist and materialist theory
Theatre and Modernism (early 20th century avant garde)
Postmodern Theory/Theatre
Actor Training
Arts in Higher Education
Dorothy Chansky
Professor of Theatre
School of Theatre and Dance
Texas Tech University
dorothychansky@gmail.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
American Little Theatre Movement
Domestic Labor on the American Stage
Food and Theatre
Feminist Theatre
James Cherry
Associate Professor
Wabash University
cherryj@wabash.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Early 20th century American theater
Parody
Popular culture
American film
Alessandro Clericuzio
Associate Professor, American Literature
University of Perugia, Italy
alessandro.clericuzio@unipg.it
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
20th century American and European drama
Tennessee Williams
Ethnic and queer studies in American drama
Theatre and film
Contemporary Italian theatre
Timothy D. Connors
Professor of Theatre
Central Michigan University
Office/Voice: 989-774-3815
conno1td@cmich.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Late 19th/Early 20th Century American Theatre and Drama
American Vaudeville (especially managers/management)
Irish Theatre and Drama
Meredith Conti
Assistant Professor of Theatre
University at Buffalo, SUNY
maconti@buffalo.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Nineteenth-century American and British theatre
Victorian medicine and theatre
Firearms in American theatre and performance
Popular entertainments of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries
Theatre iconography
Mark Cosdon
Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies
Allegheny College
(814) 332-2304
mcosdon@allegheny.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
History of Popular Entertainments
Pantomime
Contemporary American Musical
Circus
Scott T. Cummings
Associate Professor, Theatre Department
Boston College
617-552-4614
scott.cummings@bc.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Contemporary American Drama
(especially Maria Irene Fornes, Charles Mee, off-Off Broadway movement)
American ensemble theaters
(especially SITI Company)
Dramaturgy and playwriting
Resident Regional Theater movement
Eileen Curley
Associate Professor
Marist College
845-575-2536
eileencurley@gmail.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Amateur theatre
Theatrical design and technology
19th c. theatre and drama
J.K. Curry
Associate Professor, Dept. of Theatre and Dance
Wake Forest University
(336) 758-3941
curryjk@wfu.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
19th c. American theatre
women theatre managers
19th and 20th c. American drama
Rick DesRochers
Associate Professor and Director of Theatre and Multi-Media Performance
Lehman College, CUNY
rickdesrochers63@gmail.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Multi-Media Performance
Nineteenth and Early Twentieth American Stage and Film Comedy – Vaudeville, Slapstick Silent Film, and Burlesque
European Avant-Garde of Early the Twentieth Century – Cabaret, Dada, and Surrealism
Commedia dell’Arte
American Film and Television History
New Play Development and Production
Dramaturgy
Christian DuComb, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English in the University Theater
Colgate University
cducomb@colgate.edu
colgate.edu/christianducomb
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
American Cultural Studies
Avant-Garde Drama
Intercultural Theatre
Minstrelsy
Playwrights and Directors: Pig Iron Theatre Company
Theatre Historiography
Joey Falocco
Texas State University
jf48@txstate.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Shakespeare in Performance
James Fisher
Professor Emeritus, School of Theatre
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
ajfisher@uncg.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
American Theatre
Tony Kushner
Gay and Lesbian Theatre
Musical theatre
Jason Fitzgerald
Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities
University of Pittsburgh
JAF213@pitt.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Modern and Contemporary Drama
American Cultural Studies (focus: post-1945)
Climate Change / Ecocriticism
Theoretical Humanism
Black Radicalism
Radical Feminist / Queer Theory and Performance
Dramaturgy
John Frick
Professor Emeritus, Drama
University of Virginia
jwfvir@gmail.com
434-973-1742
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
19th century American Theatre
Popular entertainments
Temperance Drama
Uncle Tom’s Cabin on Stage
Shawn-Marie Garrett
Assistant Professor
Barnard College, Columbia University
3009 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
(212) 854-6863
sg488@columbia.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Suzan-Lori Parks
Contemporary Performance
European and American Theatrical Modernism
Production Dramaturgy and Directing
Fonzie D. Geary II, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Theatre
Lyon College
870-307-7511
fonzie.geary@lyon.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
American Drama 1920-1959
Maxwell Anderson
Playwrights’ Company
American Cultural Movements in Dramatic Literature (e.g. American Revolutionary Philosophy, Frontierism, Protestantism, Transcendentalism)
Michelle Granshaw
Associate Professor, Theatre Arts
University of Pittsburgh
mkg31@pitt.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
American and Irish theatre and popular entertainment
Performances of race, ethnicity, gender, and class
Diaspora and global performance histories
Theatre historiography
Stuart Hecht
Professor of Theatre
Boston College
Hecht@bc.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
20th century non-commercial Chicago theatre
Hull-House and other settlement theatres
Diasporic theatre
American musical theatre
Dramaturgy
Jewish American Theatre
Brian Eugenio Herrera
Associate Professor of Theater and Gender & Sexuality Studies
Lewis Center for the Arts,
Princeton University
bherrera@princeton.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Casting
Gender-Crossing/Drag Performance
Latinx Theatre
US Popular Performance, 1870-2020
Musical theatre
María Irene Fornés
Ramona and Performances of the US Southwest
Eileen Herrmann
Adjunct Associate Professor
Dominican University of California
415-257-0111
Giggi6000@aol.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
The drama of Eugene O’Neill
Metaphor and Modern American Drama
John H. Houchin
Chair, Theare Department
Boston College
617-552-0823
john.houchin.1@bc.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Censorship of the American Theatre
African American Theatre and Culture in the 20th Century
American Popular Entertainment in the 20th Century
Pre World War II European Avant Garde
19th-century US theatre and culture
disability studies
documentary editing
digital humanities
Lisa Jackson-Schebetta
Associate Professor, Theatre Department
Skidmore College
ljackso3@skidmore.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Hemispheric Americas
Latin America
Iberia and Spain
Coloniality
Directing and Devising
Katie N. Johnson
Professor of English
Affiliate, Global and Intercultural Studies
Miami University
johnso33@miamioh.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Playwright: Eugene O’Neill
Early American Theatre
Theatre Historiography
Gender and Performance
Women’s Theatre
Dramaturgy
Minstrelsy–Breaking of Color lines
Megan Sanborn Jones
Associate Professor, Department of Theatre and Media Arts
Brigham Young University
801 422 1321
msjones@byu.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
19th and 20th c. religious performance
Mormon performance
19th c. melodrama
Women’s studies
Musical Theatre
Associate Professor
Champollion University/Toulouse Jean-Jaurès University, France
emeline.jouve@gmail.com
Women in theater
Gender
Politics
Intermediality
Experimental theater
Susan Kattwinkel
Associate Professor, Department of Theatre and Dance
kattwinkels@cofc.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Popular Entertainment
Vaudeville
Dramaturgy
Theatre in Higher Education
Assistant Professor, Department of Performing Arts
American University
202 885 3464
kippola@american.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
American Musical Theatre
19th Century American Theatre
Acting and Acting History
Masculinity
Jeanne Klein
Associate Professor Emerita of Theatre
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66046
kleinj@ku.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Theatre for Young Audiences (18th c. through present)
Children’s plays, playwrights, and prose literature
Audience reception studies
Lincoln Konkle
Professor of English
The College of New Jersey
(609) 771-2346
konkleli@tcnj.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Thornton Wilder (novels as well as plays)
Edward Albee
Amelia Howe Kritzer
Associate Professor, English
University of St. Thomas
651-962-5883
ahkritzer@stthomas.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Caryl Churchill
Contemporary British drama
Early American theatre and drama
Early American women dramatists
Political theatre and drama
Feminist theatre and drama
Daniel Larner
Professor of Theatre
Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies
Western Washington University
360 650-4908
Daniel.Larner@wwu.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Contemporary American Drama
Dramatic Form and Structure
Comedy, Tragedy, Tragicomedy
Metaphor in Dramatic Structure
Drama into Film
Esther Kim Lee
Associate Professor, Theatre
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
217-333-2893
kim32@illinois.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Asian American theatre
Korean diaspora theatre and performance
American theatre
Ethnic theatre
Intercultural theatre
Transnational theatre
Theatre and globalization
Jan Lewis
Associate Professor and Chair of Theatre
Wesleyan College
4760 Forsyth Rd.
Macon, GA 31210
(478) 757-5249
jlewis@wesleyancollege.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Representations of Jewish Identity in American Theatre
Wendy Wasserstein
Sophie Tucker
Gender and Performance
Directing in Modern and Contemporary American Theatre
Thomas Leuchtenmüller
Independent Scholar
+49-611-56579933
t.leuchtenmueller@t-online.de
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
August Wilson
African-American Drama
Arthur Miller
Dr. Felicia Hardison Londre
Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Theatre
University of Missouri-Kansas City
816-235-2781
londref@umkc.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
American entertainment 1890s-1920s
Tennessee Williams
Thornton Wilder
Eugene O’Neill
19th & 20th-century French & Russian Theatre & Drama
Shakespeare production history
Shakespeare authorship question
Landis K. Magnuson
Professor of English
Director, Anselmian Abbey Players
Saint Anselm College, Manchester, NH 03102-1310
603-641-7037
lmagnuso@anselm.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Chautauqua and Vaudeville
Circle Stock Theatre
Touring Repertoire Theatre
Late 19th/Early 20th Century American Popular Entertainment and Culture
Kim Marra
Professor of Theatre Arts and American Studies
University of Iowa
107 Theatre Building
Iowa City, IA 52242-1705
office: (319) 353 2402 fax: (319) 335 3568
kim-marra@uiowa.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Homosexuality and lesbianism in American theatre history
Impresarios and Actresses in American theatre history, 1865-1914
Late 19th century American acting training
Feminist theatre historiography
Animal Studies and American performance history
Alma Martinez, M.F.A., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Pomona College
Department of Theatre & Dance
300 East Bonita Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
909.607.4382
Alma.martinez@pomona.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Chicano/a Theatre
Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino
Latin American Political Theatre and
Nuevo Teatro Popular (1965-1975)
Contemporary Mexican Theatre
Latinas in American Theatre
Latina/o Images in Film
Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State
Laura Mielke
Dean’s Professor of English
University of Kansas
785-864-2568
lmielke@ku.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Early American literature and theatre
Nineteenth-century US literature and theatre
American Indians in literature and performance, pre-1900
Literature of slavery and abolition
mcdanie2@oakland.edu
Derek Miller
Associate Professor of English
Harvard University
dmiller@fas.harvard.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Economics of Theater
Theater and Law
Broadway
Musical Theater
Play Publishing
Contemporary Off-Broadway Theater
Digital Humanities
Copyright
Hillary Miller
Assistant Professor of English
Queens College, City University of New York
hillary.miller@qc.cuny.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
American Theatre and Drama Post-WWII
Queer Theatre
Performance and Urban Development
Sociology of Theatre
Contemporary Playwriting
Writing Pedagogy
Courtney Elkin Mohler, PhD
Assistant Professor
American Studies Program
Founding Director of the Office of Intercultural Literacy, Capacity and Engagement
Indiana University Purdue University – Indianapolis (IUPUI)
carmel.elkin@gmail.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Native American Drama
Native American Performance
Critical Race Theory
US Ethnic Theater
Chicana/o Theater
Theater for Social Justice
Heather S. Nathans
Professor & Chair, Department of Drama and Dance, Tufts University
President, ASTR, Series Editor, Studies in Theatre History and Culture, University of Iowa Press
Heather.nathans@tufts.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Early American Theatre
Early American Popular Entertainment
Antebellum Theatre and Literature
Shakespeare in 18th and 19th century America
African American theatre and culture pre-1861
Jewish representations on the American stage, pre-1861
Dr. Sanja Nikcevic
Distinguished Professor, Drama Department, Academy of Art, University of Osijek
tel 385 1 631 41 48
sanja.nikcevic@uaos.hr
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Contemporary American drama
Contemporary European drama
Theatre criticism
Ariel Nereson
Assistant Professor
Department of Theatre & Dance, University at Buffalo – SUNY
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Dance studies
Critical race theory
Historiography
Queer studies
Popular entertainment
Cognitive studies
Musical theater choreography
Dr. Amy Osatinski
Assistant Professor of Theatre History
Oklahoma City University
asosatinski@okcu.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Contemporary Musical Theatre
Musical Theatre History
Contemporary American Theatre
Popular Culture
Theatre and Digital Media/Technology
Directing
Dramaturgy
Pedagogy
Disney Theatrical Productions
Screen-to-Stage Musicals
Elizabeth Osborne
Associate Professor of Theatre Studies
Florida State University
850-645-6858
BethOsborne@gmail.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Federal Theatre Project
Dramaturgy
American Theatre (Civil War through WWII)
Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams
Intersections of theatre and community
Barbara (Basia) Ozieblo
Professor of American Literature,
Department of English
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
University of Málaga, Spain
34 952 131795
ozieblo@uma.es
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Susan Glaspell
American Women Dramatists
Violence on stage
Cognitive studies applied to theater
Danielle Rosvally
Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Theatre and Dance, University at Buffalo
DRosvall@Buffalo.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Shakespeare
Stage Combat
Violence on Stage
Theatrical Socio-Economics
Nineteenth-Century American Theatre
Popular Culture
Bess Rowen
Assistant Professor
Villanova University
Ilka Saal
University Professor of American Literature
University of Erfurt, Nordhäuser Str. 63, 99089
Erfurt, Germany
ilka.saal@uni-erfurt.de
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Political Theater
New Deal Theater
Theater and War
Memory Studies
Trauma Studies
African American Theater
David Sauer
Professor, English
Spring Hill College
Mobile, AL 36608
251-380-4644
sauer@shc.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
David Mamet
August Wilson
Wendy Wasserstein
Contemporary American Drama
Drama in Performance
Stephen A. Schrum
Associate Professor, Department of Theatre Arts
University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg
724 836 7483
sas114@pitt.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
“Theatre in Cyberspace”
Virtual Theatre
Teaching with Technology
Goethe’s Faust
Max Shulman, PhD
Visual and Performing Arts
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
mshulman@uccs.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Modern Drama
Political Theatre
Popular Entertainment
Vaudeville
Progressive Era Theatre
Representations of Drug Addiction in American Theatre and Film
Susan Harris Smith
Professor, English
University of Pittsburgh
shs1@pitt.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Modern and Contemporary Drama
American Cultural Studies (late 19th/early 20th centuries)
Naomi J. Stubbs
Assistant Professor, English
LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York
Phone: +1-718-482-5680
Email: naomi_stubbs@hotmail.com
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Nineteenth century American theatre
Nineteenth century American popular entertainments
Pleasure gardens
Critical editing
Ansley Valentine
Associate Professor
Indiana University
arvalent@indiana.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Large-scale puppetry and mask
Community-based arts education
Shauna Vey
Professor
CUNY – New York City College of Technology
svey@citytech.cuny.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
19th and 20th Century American Theatre
Child Actors
Child labor laws
Erik Viker
Assistant Professor of Theatre
and Technical Director
Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA 17870
Telephone 570-372-4548
viker@susqu.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Production management
Theatre operations and technology
Stage management
Technical theatre in liberal arts education
Ronald Wainscott
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Theatre and Drama
Indiana University
912-855-9021
wainscot@indiana.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
American theatre and dramatic literature late 19th-21st century
American and European theatre and drama between the world wars
Eugene O’Neill
History and theory of directing
Katherine Weiss
Assistant Professor, English
East Tennessee State University
423-439-6626
weisk01@etsu.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Samuel Beckett
Sam Shepard
Sophie Treadwell
Modern Irish Drama
Modern British Drama
Ann Folino White
Associate Professor
Department of Theatre
Michigan State University
whitea38@msu.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
20th C. theatre and popular performance
Food politics and culture
Great Depression
Gender and feminist theory
Catherine Young, PhD
Adjunct Assistant Professor, English
Baruch College, CUNY
Catherine.Young@baruch.cuny.edu
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Animal studies
Popular theatre history (vaudeville, minstrelsy, circus, and Broadway)
Contemporary US theatre
Women in theatre
Critical race studies