Education

Ph.D.       Theatre, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, September 2013

Dissertation: “Last Gasp: The End of Multimedia Performance, New York, 1950–2000.”
Committee: David Savran (Chair), Jean Graham-Jones, Alison Griffiths.
Areas of Specialization: Theorizing Media, The Culture Industry, History of Scenography.

M.A.         Performance Studies, New York University, New York, NY, May 2004

Thesis: “The Kong Complex: Urban Exploration and New Manifest Destiny,” advised by Barbara   
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett.

B.F.A.       Drama, New York University, New York, NY, January 2003

Graduated with honors. Thesis: “The Blue Man and the Chocolate-Smeared Woman: Success and
Controversy in Performance Art of the Early 1990s,” advised by Branislav Jakovljevic.

Additional Education

NEH Institute: Digital Technologies in Theatre & Performance Studies, Athens, GA, June 2018

21st-Century Storytelling, Builders Association @ BRIC Media Arts Center, New York City, 2014

Mellon School for Theatre and Performance Research, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, June 2011

 

Publications

Book Chapters

“A Postdigital Response: User Experience Design, Interactive, Immersive, and Mixed Reality Performance,” with Lindsay Hunter, in Experiential Theatres: Praxis-Based Approaches to Training 21st Century Theatre Artists, edited by William W. Lewis and Sean Bartley, New York: Routledge, 2022.

“Radiohole,” in American Theatre Ensembles, Volume 2, edited by Mike Vanden Heuval, London: Methuen Drama, 2021.

Refereed Articles

“Convergence and Contingency: The Early Media Work of Reid Farrington,” Theatre Journal “Digital ‘Issues’: Rethinking Media in/and/as Performance,” 68, 3 (September 2016): 405–26.

“Your Attention Please: Media, Spectacle, and The Complex,” Scene 1, 2 (July 2013): 257–70.

“The Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf: Simulacral Performance and the Implosion of Orientalism.” Theatre Survey 54, 1 (January 2013): 87–106.

Non-Refereed Articles

“The CSA Should Gamify.” Lateral 1, 3 (Spring 2014).

“Dicking around with Radiohole: Toward Hyperreal Performance and Criticism.” TDR: The Drama Review 51, 4 (Winter 2007): 156–62.

Interview

“In Media Res: Why Multimedia Performance?” PAJ 29, 3 (Fall 2007): 15–29. With Eric Dyer, Brooke O’Harra, and Alex Timbers.

Reviews

“The City We Make Together: City Council Meeting’s Primer for Participation.” Performance Research, forthcoming spring 2023.

“The Builders Association: Performance and Media in Contemporary Theater.” TDR: The Drama Review 60, 4 (Winter 2016): 160–62.

“Feminist Surveillance Studies.” International Journal of Performance and Digital Media 11, 2 (Fall 2015).

“Not Really Sky: The Bluest Ink struggled to redefine Sondheim for the Millennial Generation,” with Virginia Anderson. The Sondheim Review 20, 2 (Spring 2014): 12.

“The Impossibility of Cynthia Hopkins, or, Can Autobiographical Musical Performance Save the Space Program?” PAJ 94 (Winter 2010): 76–82.

“Television Will Be the End of War: Staging Broadcasting History.” PAJ 28, 2 (Spring 2006): 89–94.

“Never Tell: Nicole Blackman’s The Courtesan Tales,” with T. Nikki Cesare. TDR: The Drama Review 49, 3 (Fall 2005): 107–13.

Reference Material

“Hierarchy” and “Simulacrum.” Reading Contemporary Performance: Theatricality Across Genres, ed. Gabrielle Cody and Meiling Cheng. NY: Routledge, 2015.

Fellowships and Awards

Global Imaginations Symposium Grant, Connecticut College, September 2014.

Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology Fellow, Connecticut College, September 2013 – present.

Center for Teaching and Learning Professional Development Grant, Cal Poly, August 2012.

Emerging Scholar, American Theatre and Drama Society, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, August 2006.

Chancellor’s Fellow, Graduate Center, CUNY, September 2005.

Performance Studies Fellowship, New York University, September 2003.

Conference Presentations

“Franchise Performance: The Age of Theatricalized Reproduction.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Online, July 2020.

“First-Person Spectator.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Orlando, FL, July 2019.

“The Ends of Multimedia Performance.” Performance Studies Working Group. Yale University, February 2019.“The New Analog: Theatre as Social Medium and Resistance to Social Media.” American Society for Theatre Research. Atlanta, GA, November 2017.

“The System Has Become ‘Interactive’: The Shared Formations of the Blue Man and the Internet” and “No Place/Like Home: Elements of Oz as Convergent Spectacle.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Las Vegas, NV, August 2017.

“‘We Ask that You Stay Together and Remain Silent’: Reimagining Space for a Community of Foreigners.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Montréal, Quebec, July 2015.

“Nam June Paik’s Good Morning, Mr. Orwell: Significance and Legacy Thirty Years Later.” 14th Biennial Arts and Technology Symposium. New London, CT, February 2014.

“‘It Is a World’: Robert Whitman’s Countermedia.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Orlando, FL, August 2013.

“Your Attention Please: Media, Spectacle, and The Complex.” Performance Studies International. Palo Alto, CA, June 2013.

“Gamify the Conference: A Modest Proposal.” Cultural Studies Association. Chicago, IL, May 2013.

“Spectacle of Uniformity: the Blue Man as Franchised Humanism.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Washington, DC, August 2012.

“The Forbidden Zone: Interventions in Minstrelsy by the Wooster Group and the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.” Philadelphia Theatre Research Symposium. Philadelphia, PA, January 2012.

“Video Games Live: The Epic Battle for Legitimacy.” American Society for Theatre Research. Montreal, Quebec, November 2011.

“Impure Form: The Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf.” Comparative Drama Conference. Los Angeles, CA, March 2011.

“Multimedia: A Ten-Letter Word?” Cultural Studies Association. Berkeley, CA, March 2010.

“Orgasmic Media, or, Post-Evolutionary Reproduction.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Denver, CO, August 2008.

“Orgasmic Media, or, Post-Evolutionary Reproduction.” Cultural Studies Association. New York, NY, May 2008.

“The Invisible Event: Mediation and Performance.” Performance Studies International Conference.  New York, NY, November 2007.

“The Megachurch and Spectacular American Religion.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education.  Chicago, IL, August 2006.

“‘Bizarre’ Barbara: Shaw, Kabuki, and Language.” Sesquicentennial Shaw: An International Bernard Shaw Conference. Providence, RI, June 2006.

Academic Appointments

Connecticut College, New London, CT, 9/2018 – present; 8/2013 – 5/2016
Associate Director, Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theater

History of Arts & Technology
Senior Seminar in Arts & Technology
Art of Protest
Queer Performance
Special Topics in Theater: Information for Foreigners
Theater and Culture I
Theater and Culture II
Acting I: Preparation

University of New Haven, West Haven, CT, 9/2016 – 8/2018
Visiting Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of Theater

Multimedia Performance
Theater for Community Impact
Directing I & II
Theatrical Movements and Manifestos
Theatrical Roots and Rituals

Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT, 8/2015 – 5/2016
Adjunct Assistant Professor

Performance in Context: New Media
World Theatre History: Ancient to 17th Century
World Theatre History: 18th Century to Present

Trinity College, Hartford, CT, 8/2015 – 1/2016
Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre and Dance

Introduction to Media Studies

 

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, 9/2011 – 6/2013
Lecturer

° Developed and implemented the new Liberal Arts & Engineering Studies minor, including the development of an introductory course, general curriculum and requirements, as well as overall learning objectives.

Introduction to Media Arts and Technologies
Global Theatre and Performance
Script Analysis
Introduction to Theatre

Metropolitan College of New York, New York, NY, 5/2010 – 8/2010
Adjunct Instructor

Great Books Seminar: Man vs. Machine

 

New York University, New York, NY, 1/2009 – 7/2010
Adjunct Instructor

Spectacular Performance
U.S. Theatre to World War II
Theatre in New York

 

Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY, 9/2006 – 5/2009
Graduate Teaching Fellow

Twentieth-Century Theatre
U.S. Theatre History
Introduction to Theatre Studies
Introduction to Acting

Professional Service and Experience

International Journal of Performance and Digital Media, 4/2015 – present
Editorial Board Member

° Conduct peer reviews and contributes to discussions on the direction, content, and special topics.

ATHE Performance Studies Focus Group
Focus Group Representative (FGR) (elected position, 2020-2022; various leadership positions, 2015-2020)

° Oversaw the development of equitable practices in experimental conference formats, collaborating with local communities, and developing awards for early career and contingent scholars.

° Planned and curated the 2015 and 2016 ATHE Performance Studies Focus Group Pre-Conferences, including theme, collaborations with PSi, panels and discussions; read and help to determine the winners of the PSFG Emerging Scholar competition.

Obscene Jester: the performance art blog, 8/2006 – 1/2015
Co-author

° Created, designed, and authored http://www.obscenejester.org as Tweed, writing entries on contemporary performance in New York City. The blog also features Obscene Jester: the podcast.

The Cultural Studies Association, 3/2009 – 5/2013
President, Technology Division

° Coordinated sessions for the Technology Division of the CSA, including “The Ivory Server: The Academy and the Digital” (2013), “Disjuncture: Technology in Discourse, Technology in Practice” and “Hypercapitalism: Technology and the Contemporary Market” (2011), as well as “Fallen into the Wrong Hands: Misusing and Misreading Technology” and “Technology/Historiography” (2010). Currently coordinates the division’s new online presence, including a listserv as a communal resource and discussion site for members. Created the Gamify the CSA site for the 2013 conference.

Performing Arts Journal, New York, NY, 4/2005 – 5/2008
Production Manager

° Oversaw the entire production of an academic journal, published three times a year. Tasks included editing, design, writing, and general office tasks and correspondence. Extensive work was done in collaboration with many international authors and artists.

° Reinstated PAJ Publications, copyediting Performance, Science, Technology by Johannes Birringer, Performance Histories by Bonnie Marranca, Act French: Contemporary Plays from France edited by Philippa Wehle, and Letters from Cuba and Other Plays by Maria Irene Fornes.

TDR: The Drama Review, New York, NY, 6/2003 – 5/2004
Assistant Editor

° Edited content and copy of international articles for a scholarly journal of performance studies. ° Other duties included daily office administration, correspondence with authors, and design.

° Participated in the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference (2003) and the Performance Studies International conference (2002).

Practical & Artistic Experience

Directing

The Trojan Women
Adapted and Translated by Ellen McLaughlin from Euripides
University of New Haven, 2018

“An Evening of Radio Plays”
By Samuel Beckett, the Neo-Futurists, and Harold Pinter
University of New Haven, 2017

How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying
Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert
University of New Haven, 2017

Empathy
An original evening devised with students from Theater for Community Impact
University of New Haven, 2016

Information for Foreigners
by Griselda Gambaro
Connecticut College, 2014

Research

Here Lies Love
David Byrne/FatboySlim
Public Theatre, 2013

SUPERVISION
The Builders Association
St. Ann’s Warehouse, 2005