Theatre Research Approach

The Department of Theatre is a hub for Creative Practice Research. We offer many exciting and challenging opportunities to develop and advance new knowledge about theatre and performance in the 21st century. Through a combination of interdisciplinary research, scholarship, teaching, publications, and productions, our faculty, staff, students, and alumni share strengths in several areas of research and artistic engagement.

Areas of research expertise and inquiry comprise a wide range, from exploring the impact of political theatre and community-based performance to the role of theatre pedagogy in lifelong learning. From understanding the influence of race in the actor-audience relationship to the application of acting techniques to business and interpersonal communication. From leveraging the training in movement and voice to collaboration with robotics and public health. Encounters with this scholarship can offer new capacities for innovative and impactful discoveries and ideas.

Our department is home to many faculty who are creative practice researchers – from traditional scholars to traditional theatre makers and everything in between. We make theatre, both professionally and with our students. We are experienced and acclaimed actors, directors, designers, devisers, and playwrights who actively engage with the performing arts nationally and regionally. Our faculty practitioners create and interpret a diverse spectrum of dramatic forms and aesthetics such as classical theatre, modern drama, contemporary theatre practices, opera, musicals, devised theatre, movement-based theatre, and original work.

Productions

Our faculty are active in the professional theatre community. Recent productions include:

Shakespeare in Love, Exit the King and Photograph 51 featuring Jesse Hinson; Twelfth Night and Dancing at Lughnasa, featuring Samantha Richert;  La Cenerentola, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and Man of La Mancha, directed by Antonio Ocampo-Guzman; Man of La Mancha and The Snow Queen, designed by Frances Nelson McSherry, Choir Boy, Felix Starro and La Susanna, directed by Oliver Wason; and The Two Character Play, directed by Janet Bobcean.

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Publications

Our professors have written books exploring important topics related to theatre. Recent publications include Artistic Literacy: Theatre Studies and a Contemporary Liberal Education by Dr. Nancy Kindelan and Theatre of Good Intentions: Challenges and Hopes for Theatre and Social Change by Dr. Dani Snyder-Young.

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