TUFTS UNIVERSITY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Professor, MiraCosta College
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Adam Smith (he/him/his) is pleased to be back home in New England and a member of the Tufts community since 2017. As an audio engineer his credits include Actors Theatre of Louisville (four years of The Humana Festival of New American Plays), American Theatre Company (Chicago), Marriott Theatre (Lincolnshire, IL), Jenny Wiley Theatre (Prestonsburg, KY), and Merrimack Repertory (Lowell, MA). Adam has also designed sound for theatre companies including Stage Left Theatre, Eclipse Theatre Company, and The Artistic Home. Prior to joining Tufts' Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, Adam was the Staff Sound Technologist at The Theatre School at DePaul University from 2012 to 2017. He is also a musician and composer who produces his own music.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Dramatic Arts, University of Connecticut
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor and past Director of the Dance Program
- Associate Professor Emerita
- Associate Professor Emerita, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Biography
Alice E. Trexler (1978-2012) is an Emerita Associate Professor and past Director of the Dance Program. She holds a Ph.D. from NYU. She taught courses in creative process, composition, performance, dance cultures, physical theater, and interdisciplinary studies. She offered both applied and theoretical courses and created performances in liberal arts settings such as Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, and Tufts for forty years. She also produced and choreographed experimental dance in New York, Philadelphia and Boston in the seventies and eighties, training at and with The Graham School, Cunningham Studio, Luigi's, Leon Collins Studio, Richard Bull, and Nancy Stark Smith. She performed with Richard Bull's New York Chamber Dance Group, The Mosaic Dance Group of Philadelphia, and in musical theatre summer stock. A past member of the American Dance Guild Board of Directors, she directed the ADG national conference in 1988, and has also presented at NDA, NDEO, and other national conferences. Her dance writing has appeared in various periodicals. She was involved in interdisciplinary teaching with Biology Professor Francie Chew for fifteen years, having participated in the creation of the first course for the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and, later, a cross-listed American Studies course--Viewing African American Dance: Perspectives from Art and Science. Alice Trexler headed and served on many Tufts Arts and Sciences Committees. In May 2011, she received the Seymour O. Simches Award for distinguished teaching and advising, and in April 2012, the Dance Studies Award was named for her.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Theatre, Boston Conservatory
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- Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and Leadership, Virginia Tech University
Amelia Rose Estrada is a queer, Latina-Jewish interdisciplinary artist and scholar. For her dissertation, she is researching the intersection of dance, race, and nation in the Dominican Republic and Dominican diaspora. She received her M.A. in Theater and Performance in 2022. Her M.A. qualifying paper, Balancing and Bending in Bling: The Aesthetics of the Acrobatic Latina Athlete, analyzed the first pair of athletes to represent Team Mexico in Acrobatic Gymnastics and how glitter aesthetics are used to reflect and project identity. As a performance maker, she is interested in crafting work that speaks to identity, gender, queerness, and intergenerational ancestral relationality. Her choreography has been presented at SPACE in Portland, Maine, the Spark Theater Festival NYC, FilmFest by Rogue Dancer: h2o Edition, the Koresh Artist Showcase and at Cuerpo Mediado Festival de Videodanza in Rosario, Argentina, among others. As a theatrical choreographer, Amelia has worked on productions including CarmXn, a modern adaptation of the opera Carmen with Hogfish, Spring Awakening at Tufts, she is the associate choreographer for Moonbox Theater's 2023 production of Sweeney Todd, and she will be directing and choreographing Twelfth Night: The Musical at Tufts in the spring. Amelia also makes lesbian dance theater with her artistic partner, Elle Jansen, under the company name MELLE. As a freelance performing artist, she has had the pleasure of working with Edwin and Matt Cahill at Hogfish, Joy Clark, Luminarium Dance Company, Eventual Dance Company, Catherine Stiller, Brian Sanders' JUNK, Megan Flynn Dance Company, and Leilani Chirino Dance and Drum Ensemble, among others. For more info: www.aremoves.com
Job Titles:
- Lecturer in Theatre at Boston College and Boston University
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- Literary Manager, Coalesence Theatre Project
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- Theatre Emeritus, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
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- Professor Emeritus of Theatre, UNC Asheville
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- Resident Director Open Fist Theatre Company, Los Angeles
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- Dispute Resolution Specialist, Southern New Hampshire University
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- Theatre Arts Program Director at Boston Shakespeare Project
Job Titles:
- Senior Lecturer
- Senior Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Brian J. Lilienthal has designed well over 200 productions across the country including: 20 productions with Trinity Repertory Company, Merrimack Rep, South Coast Rep, The Pasadena Playhouse, Arizona Theatre Company, Milwaukee Rep, Cleveland Playhouse, The Arden Theatre, Capital Rep, La Mama ETC, Cherry Lane Theatre, New Paradise Labs, Pig Iron Theatre, The Bard Summerscape, Portland Opera Repertory Theatre, Long Beach Opera. He was the resident Lighting Designer for Actors Theatre of Louisville for six seasons, designing 60 productions, including 20 world premieres during the Humana Festival of New American Plays. He was also the resident assistant designer at American Repertory Theatre for two seasons. Brian J. Lilienthal received an L.A. Ovation award in 2006 for his work on Ken Roht's Echo's Hammer at the Theatre @ Boston Court.
Bridget Kathleen O'Leary (she | her | hers) is a freelance director, dramaturg and theater educator. From 2008-2018 she served as the Associate artistic director at New Repertory Theatre. Select directing credits include: Heartland, Ripe Frenzy (IRNE Award winner for Best New Play), Blackberry Winter (Elliot Norton Nomination, Best New Play), Pattern of Life (IRNE Award winner for Best New Play), Lungs, Collected Stories (Elliot Norton Nomination, Best Production 2012), Doll House (Elliot Norton Nomination, Best Production, 2011), and Fool for Love. Other directing credits include: Grand Concourse, for Speakeasy Stage Company; Othello, for Actor's Shakespeare Project; The Flick, for Gloucester Stage Company; The Other Place, for The Nora Theatre Company and Underground Railway Theater; Recent Tragic Events and Aunt Dan and Lemon, for Whistler in the Dark; Reconsidering Hanna(h) and The Devil's Teacup (IRNE Nomination, Best New Play, 2007) at Boston Playwrights' Theatre. Bridget served on the Executive Committee for the National New Play Network (NNPN) as the Chair of the Literary Committee from 2012-2020 where she over saw the selection process for both the NNPN Showcase of new works and the Kennedy Center's MFA Playwrights' Workshop. She was the production dramaturg on the premiere of Finish Line: A documentary play about the 2013 Boston Marathon (Elliot Norton Nomination, Best New Play) at the Boch Center and has worked as a dramaturg with the Kennedy Center and Washington University's Hotch Fest. From 2012-2017, Bridget was the creator and curator for the Next Voices reading series at New Repertory Theatre. Before moving to Boston, Bridget worked in Washington, D.C. with the Olney Theatre Center, Theater Alliance, Cherry Red Productions, Charter Theater, Studio Theatre Second Stage, and Phoenix Theatre DC, of which she was a founding member. Bridget received her MFA in directing at Boston University.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder, Double Edge Theatre
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
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- Principal, Braintree High School
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- Co - Director of Women 's Studies at Hofstra University
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- Assistant Professor of Theatre, University of Florida
Job Titles:
- Theatre and Chair, Hope College Theatre Department
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- Associate Adjunct Professor, University of the Arts
Job Titles:
- Senior Lecturer Emeritus
- Senior Lecturer Emeritus, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies / Senior Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Education
BA, College at Lincoln Center, Fordham University, United States, 1973
Biography
A dance-maker, teacher, mentor, and dance curator, Daniel McCusker is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theatre, Drama, and Performance Studies at Tufts University. In 2019 he performed in the Merce Cunningham Centennial Project, Night of 100 Solos, in Los Angeles. The Centennial Project led to performances of the Cunningham solos at the Akron Museum of Art, the Spiegeltent at Bard, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Projects of the last few years include publication of "Start Here" in the January 2020 edition of PAJ, a part of artist visual artist Katarina Weslien's project, Walks of Compassion; participation in a Dancing Lab, focused on dance and technology, at the National Center for Choreography, Akron, 2019; making a duet for performances by the Christopher Watkins Dance Company, in Minneapolis, April 2018; rehearsal directing the Boston Conservatory performances of Merce Cunningham's How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run, 2017; movement work for a production of Sarah Ruhl's Orlando, directed by Natalya Balydga, for Opera House Arts in Stonington ME, and performances of his dance Hey! at the ICA/Boston, 2016. In 2015/16, he served as the project manager and rehearsal director for the Boston Conservatory's Cunningham Project, at the ICA/Boston, in conjunction with the Black Mountain College exhibit, Leap Before You Look.
McCusker has taught internationally in Canada, Singapore and France as well as at several American dance festivals and he has been a guest artist in many university dance and art programs. In addition to making his own work, he performed in the work of many of his contemporaries, in New York in the 70s and 80s, and in Portland ME in the 90s. He danced with the Lucinda Childs Dance Company, 1977-1983, 1990-91, on tour in the US and Western Europe. For seven years he directed Ram Island Dance, a community dance organization, in Portland ME, with a company that toured throughout New England, classes for children and adults, and a small presenting program. For several years he served as the co-director of the Young Dancers Program for Summer Stages Dance and served as a mentor to several Summer Stages Choreography Fellows. He moved to Boston in the mid-90s and, for fifteen years, taught open modern classes to adults and teens, at the Dance Complex, and presented his own work locally and in New England.
A native New Yorker, Daniel McCusker trained at Alfredo Corvino's studio, studied modern technique at the Cunningham Studio and improvisation with Judy Padow. In Boston, he has studied improvisation, with Olivier Besson and Debra Bluth. In Portland, he studied modern technique with Gwyneth Jones.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Humanities, Fisher College, Boston
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- Assistant Professor of Theatre at University at Buffalo
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- Professor of Drama, University of California - Irvine
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- Lecturer in Theatre Studies, DePaul University
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- Chairman of Theatre at Five Towns College in New York
DeVante Love is a Ph.D. candidate whose research rests at the intersection of psychoanalysis, popular culture, embodiment, and QTPOC liberation. They specifically look at how a ritualistic engagement in performances of anime, martial arts, and voguing allows one to explore their identities, transform, and heal. In 2018, they received a Masters in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University, during which they researched how creating a spiritual practice out of our hobbies can be an intervention for improving mental and emotional health. Since then, they have traveled across the globe holding workshops and counseling sessions that teach people how to heal themselves and find inner peace. During the pandemic, they co-authored a book about healing through creativity and opened an online wellness academy, Healing Kung Fu, to spread their work further to those in need. In addition to being a doctoral student, DeVante is also a mystic and a playwright. They will soon become a Buddhist Lama and are in the midst of completing their 3-part immersive theatrical production that allows the audience to experience the healing potential within practices such as spoken word poetry, martial arts, anime, voguing, etc.
Job Titles:
- Professor
- Professor of Theatre
- Professor, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
- Voice Specialist, Director
Dr. Barbara Wallace Grossman is a theatre historian, voice specialist, director, and author with strong interests as a researcher and practitioner in contemporary musical theatre, Holocaust and Genocide-related theatre and film, arts advocacy, and mindfulness as a way to alleviate anxiety, develop resilience, and promote positive change. Professor of Theatre at Tufts University, her publications include Funny Woman: The Life and Times of Fanny Brice (Indiana University Press) and A Spectacle of Suffering: Clara Morris on the American Stage (Southern Illinois University Press). A presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts (1994-1999) and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (2000-2005), she served as Vice Chair of the Massachusetts Cultural Council from 2007 to 2019.
In addition to her long affiliation with the American Repertory Theater as a member of its Board of Advisors, she serves on the Anti-Defamation League's New England Regional Board and on the Board of Directors for MassCreative, the most effective advocacy organization for the creative community in Massachusetts. Recognized for "Outstanding Service" by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts in 2015, she received the Mayor Thomas M. Menino Memorial Award for "Inspired Support of the Arts in Boston" the following year. In 2018 the Terezín Music Foundation honored her with its Legacy Award which "celebrates a commitment to diversity, tolerance, and dialogue through acts of civil service, philanthropy, scholarship, or artistry."
Professor Grossman teaches a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses at Tufts including Breaking the Frame: Innovative Musicals in Their Cultural Moments, Telling American Stories: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Musicals from Of Thee I Sing to A Strange Loop, Confronting Genocide on Stage and Screen, and Voice & Speech: The Art of Confident Expression. As a director, her dramatic work at Tufts has ranged from Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good to Tadeusz Slobodzianek's Our Class, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia to Joyce Van Dyke's Daybreak. Musical productions have included A Little Night Music, Company, Kiss Me, Kate, Parade, and Rent. Most recently she directed Kate Hamill's spirited adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the last production to run at Tufts before the spring 2020 Covid-19 shutdown. Deeply committed to Jewish arts and culture, she sings with Newton's Kol Emanuel and performs with the Jewish Arts Collaborative's TheaterWorks program in the Greater Boston area.
Job Titles:
- Professor Emeritus of Theatre and Dance, Ohio Wesleyan University
Elijah Punzal is a first-year PhD student with research interests that broadly revolve around Filipino American diaspora and generational (re)memory, hoping to investigate how contemporary Fil-Am performances engage with identity, belonging, and ethics surrounding how Filipino Americans come to know or remember their history. Elijah graduated from the University of California Irvine with a double major in Drama and Education Sciences, minor in Urban Studies, and departmental honors in Dramatic Literature, History, and Theory. Prior to joining Tufts, Elijah worked at Berkeley Repertory Theatre as the 2022 Education & Community Engagement Fellow as well as Off-Broadway at WP Theatre as the 2021 Data Associate & Gala Assistant. With their work as a community facilitator, Elijah's research interests are largely influenced from their time in LGBTQ+ and API community organizations, most notably with the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies, UCI Filipino American Alumni Chapter, and UCI LGBT Resource Center. Earlier in 2023, Elijah had the immense pleasure of contributing to UCI New Swan Shakespeare Festival's inaugural zine publication, writing a brief comparative piece on political leadership, public influence, and rhetoric between the fictional world of Julius Caesar and the current Philippine presidency.
Elisa (Ayorinde) Peebles is a PhD candidate, creative strategist, and griot originally born and raised in Haudenosaunee territory, and currently finding refuge in the Caribbean archipelago of Borikén. Her research interests include Black Studies, Caribbean Studies and anti-colonial futurity, with a specific focus on the role of Black Atlantic Spirituality in the pursuit of liberation and the production of Otherwise worlds. She earned a BS in Media, Culture and Communications Studies from New York University.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Theatre, Pine Manor College
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- Faculty Associate, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
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- Associate Professor of Theatre, Skidmore College
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- Founder, Public Speaking International
Grace Evans is a first-year PhD candidate whose research concerns embodiment, theatricality, and stagings of neoliberal violence within U.S. labor and immigrant solidarity movements. She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University with a B.A. in Social Studies and a secondary in Ethnicity, Migration, Rights. Her undergraduate research explored how white faith activists in the Austin Sanctuary Network rehearsed their political and ethical commitments during times of narrowing political opportunities for challengers to the U.S. deportation regime. Grace previously organized for union recognition and worker power in the hospitality industry and currently teaches high school students through the local workforce development board. She aims to produce interdisciplinary scholarship that is accessible and provocative for those active in movement work.
Job Titles:
- Executive Committee of Autism Living and Working, First Lady of Minnesota
Job Titles:
- Editor
- Alice and Nathan Gantcher Professor of Judaic Studies, Professor of Theatre, Dean of Academic Affairs
- Dean of Academic Affairs and Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion
- Dean of Academic Affairs and Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion, the School of Arts and Sciences / Professor, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Nathans is the Editor for the award-winning Studies in Theatre History and Culture series from the University of Iowa Press (https://uipress.uiowa.edu/series/studies-theatre-history-and-culture). She is the recipient of the John W. Frick Book Award from the American Theatre and Drama Society, the Betty Jean Jones Award from the American Theatre and Drama Society (https://www.atds.org/awards/), and the Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History from the American Society for Theatre Research (https://www.astr.org/page/BarnardHewittAward).
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Theatre, Boston Conservatory
Hernan Sanchez Garcia is a first year PhD student studying how humor is used to discuss themes of race, gender, class and sexuality in Latinx Theater to create a generational channel for commentary and conversation. Hernan received his bachelor's degree in English and History with a minor in Theater from the University of Rochester. For his first onstage role, Hernan played God in URITP's production of Branden Jacob Jenkins, Everybody. Throughout his undergraduate study, Hernan explored and compared various dramatic works from the Chicano and Chicana Theater movement and other queer Latinx playwrights. His other academic interests include understanding the relationship between autobiography and theater through the themes of adaptation, performance, and identity. Presently, Hernan studies storytelling and improvisation at the Magnet Theater in NYC. He continues to perform regularly as a storyteller and improviser.
Job Titles:
- Visiting Assistant Professor, School of Theatre, Florida State University
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Holly Stone is an interdisciplinary alchemist new to the Greater Boston area. Their movement backgrounds in ballet, contemporary, and ballroom dance allow them to move seamlessly between genres and to challenge expectations of gender and partnership. Currently teaching through Arthur Murray Dance Studios, their original story ballet THE QUEEN OF NORI has been presented at Starlight Stage, Windhover Center for the Performing Arts, Boston Center for the Arts, & Paliku Theatre. Holly was also the Resident Choreographer for Wanderlust Theatre, and has created dance films for festivals internationally. Recent theater choreography credits include CATS for Quincy Musical Theatre, A NEW BRAIN for FSU Theatre, and CANDIDE for FSU Opera. Holly believes in the power of 'what if' and is a master schemer, organizer, and storyteller.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Adjunct Professor at Endicott College
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Ian Berg is a Boston-based tap dancer originally from Chicago, Illinois. Ian has been dancing since an early age and has training and performance experience in tap dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, contact improvisation and a variety of other styles and approaches. In high school, Ian trained at the Joffrey Academy in Chicago while also dancing with the renowned Chicago based tap company MADD Rhythms, of which he is still a member. Ian is also a musician as well as a composer and arranger of music and an alum of The School at Jacob's Pillow and the Boston Conservatory with a BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance.
Ian is currently an adjunct professor at Endicott College and Boston University as well as a guest lecturer at Tufts University teaching tap dance practice and history. In 2018, Ian was named "Rising Dance Star" in the Improper Bostonian's "Best of Boston" issue. He has received recognition as a choreographer from The Yard where he was named a 2019 Bessie Schonberg Fellow, The Boston Foundation where he was named a 2019 Next Steps Awardee and The Massachusetts Cultural Council who named him a 2020 Choreography Fellow. He is currently living in Boston, Massachusetts where he is the director of tap dance company Subject:Matter. Since its formation in 2015, Subject:Matter has played venues like the Inside/Out Stage at Jacob's Pillow, Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA, Joe's Pub and Gibney Dance Center in New York City, Stage 773 in Chicago, IL, Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA, Performance Garage in Philadelphia, PA, and House of Blues, The Museum of Fine Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, MA.
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- Assistant Professor of Theatre, Vanderbilt University
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- Software Engineer, Capital One
Job Titles:
- Senior Lecturer
- Senior Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies / Director of the Dance Program, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Jaclyn Waguespack holds an MFA in Dance Performance from The Ohio State University and a B.A. in Mathematics and Movement Studies from Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. She has lived and danced in New York City, the Midwest and Ireland, and has enjoyed recent collaborations with Daniel McCusker, Alice Trexler, Meghan McLyman, Kristen Duffy Young, Annie Kloppenberg, Jeremy Nelson and Colleen Leonardi. In addition to teaching at Tufts, she makes her own work and teaches modern dance, jazz, hip hop, improvisation and composition to students in the Greater Boston area.
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- Designer and Editor, Sesquiotica.Com, Toronto
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- Lecturer Emeritus, Boston Conservatory
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- Assistant Professor of Theatre, Colorado State University
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- Theatre and Chair, Department of Performing Arts, Roger Williams University
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- Professor of the Practice
- Professor of the Practice, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Jennifer Burton is a filmmaker and helms the independent film company Five Sisters Productions. Her films include Origin of the Species (a feature documentary exploring how robots are already disrupting our ethical, cultural, and social lives, directed by Abigail Child); Kings, Queens, & In-Betweens (a feature documentary on gender, identity, and drag), The Happiest Day of His Life (MTV/Logo) and Manna From Heaven (MGM/SONY). Corporate projects include the "Your Ford Story" campaign of mini-documentary commercials for Ford Motor Company. Working with Tufts student filmmakers, she has produced the Half the History project, a series of short films on women in American history, and Old Guy, a comedic take on ageism in the media. Her publications include Call and Response: Key Debates in African American Studies (W. W. Norton), co-edited with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and The Prize Plays and Other One-Acts: Zora Neale Hurston, Eulalie Spence, Marita Bonner, and Others(Macmillan/G.K. Hall). Burton earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University in English and American Literature, writing her dissertation on hope in American literature and film.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Jenny Henderson is a Ph.D student at Tufts University whose research investigates the intersections of performance, place, and memory; her current project traces legacies of sexual abuse and bodily agency along U.S. sites of transit. She recently completed her M.A. thesis which interrogated anti-Black violence within the American interstate system and examined artistic and activist modes of refusal communities have deployed on highways. She also taught the department's new "Performance and Social Justice" course and worked as a research assistant for Dr. Lilian Mengesha and Dr. Daanika Gordon's "Building Transformative Justice at Tufts" initiative. Jenny graduated Cum Laude from Miami University in 2017 and spent the following few years working as a copyeditor in Chicago, IL. In addition to her scholarship, Jenny has gained recognition for her work in cultural criticism and creative nonfiction.
Job Titles:
- Theatre Director and Arts Department Chair, Boston Collegiate Charter School
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Jenny Oliver has been teaching Afro-Haitian Dance and Culture at Tufts since 2016. She began training and learning about the traditions of Folkloric dance in 2005 and began traveling to Haiti in 2013 to further development and support the progress of dance in Haiti by helping local artists develop their artistic endeavors. Her background includes a degree in dance, focusing on pedagogy and training in Modern, Jazz, Tap and Ballet; she's also completed the Horton Pedagogy Program at the Ailey School and the Cultural Traditions Program at the School of Jacob's Pillow. She recently was awarded the first choreographer in residency at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and is one of the first Boston Dance Maker's Residence at the Boston Center for the Arts. This year her work has been presented at HUBWeek Boston, Mark Morris Dance Center, #HellaBlack: BCA Mixtape Vol.1, We Create Festival, BDA Gala, MayFair Festival, Museum of Fine Arts and right here at Tufts University. As a member of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapog, she is passionate about black dance in the diaspora as well as Indigenous representation and brings her experiences to all spaces where she teaches.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
- Tufts in 2017 As the Assistant Technical Director
Jessica "JP" Pizzuti joined Tufts in 2017 as the Assistant Technical Director, and began serving as the Interim Technical Director in the Fall 2018 semester. They completed their undergraduate degree at Brandeis University before joining the Huntington Theatre Company for a year-long apprenticeship, and held design and technical positions with numerous local companies throughout the last decade. They are active in the Boston-area theatre community as a freelance technical director and production manager
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- Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre, Williams College
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- Independent Senior Advisor and Trustee
Jo Michael Rezes is a nonbinary theatremaker & transmedia artist in Greater Boston dedicated to the development of new, queer works which feature transgender artists and fabulously grotesque aesthetics. Selected acting credits: Rocky Horror Show (Entropy Theatre); Nosferatu, The Vampyr (Sparkhaven Theatre); The Inheritance (SpeakEasy Stage Co.); Things I Know to Be True (Great Barrington Public Theater). Directing: Trans [Plays] of Remembrance (HowlRound.TV) & Cloud 9 (AD, The Nora - Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Direction). Jo instructs gender and performance courses across the country (Yale Dramatic Association, UMass Law, Tufts, The Theatre Offensive) and serves as a contributor & gender consultant nationwide with the Gender Explosion Initiative at StageSource. Their TEDTalk, A Playful Exploration of Gender Performance, is available online! Jo is developing a monograph, Fractals: Nonbinary Acting Methods, and facilitates workshops on the topic. At Tufts, Jo has instructed Introduction to Acting, Public Speaking, and Devised Performance through TDPS, and they teach Camp: Humor, Bad Taste, Cult-Classics through the Tufts Experimental College. Rezes will also direct M Sloth Levine's "The Interrobangers" in Fall 2022 as part of the Tufts TDPS 22/23 production season. Their dissertation project, "Tastes Like AIDS: Sweet Aesthetics, Bitter Humor, and the Viral Flavors of HIV/AIDS" prioritizes sensation and taste to explore the aesthetic contaminations of queerness & race on public perceptions of the ongoing, global HIV/AIDS crisis. Rezes is a proud Vassar College alum (BA, English & Drama), Ph.D. Candidate in Theatre & Performance Studies at Tufts University, and Lecturer in Theatre at Boston College. Learn more at: JMRezes.com.
Job Titles:
- Senior Lecturer
- Senior Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Jo Williams received her MFA in Production Management from Boston University and her BA in Theatre/Speech from Northwestern College. She has been a production manager for the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at Tufts University since 2013.
She has been the program manager for Tufts Children's Theatre since 2016. Williams has managed a wide variety of productions for both children's and adult theatre, including "Passing Strange", "Twelfth Night", "Rent", "Miss Saigon", "The Velveteen Rabbit", and "James and the Giant Peach", to name a few. Other credits include associate producer for "Finish Line: A Documentary Play about the 2013 Boston Marathon", production manager for Tennessee Williams Theater Festival (2015 to 2017), and production manager for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (2014-2015). She was the production manager for Moonbox Productions from 2017-2022 where she continues to work as a consultant. She has also worked with Boston Opera Collaborative, Boston Children's Theatre, Bridge Repertory Theater Company and Boston University.
Williams has extensive experience as an Equity Stage Manager and has worked on productions for the New Repertory Theatre, Noble Fool Theatricals in Chicago, Northwestern University, and Chicago Opera Theatre. She has also managed many private events for corporations and nonprofit organizations such as Harvard University, Rosie's Place, and WBUR.
John (he/they) is a theatre maker and administrator engaged at the intersection of theory and practice. Passionate about creating pathways into the arts, John has supported the work of educational theatre organizations for over 10 years.Their current interests include leadership theory, non-hierarchical management structures, integrated EDIA strategies, and trends in youth empowerment since COVID 19.
John holds an MFA in Theatre Management from Florida State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Dance from Macalester College.
Job Titles:
- Freelance Writer and Playwright
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor of Theatre
- Associate Professor, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Kareem Khubchandani (any pronouns) is Associate Professor of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at Tufts University. He is the author of Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife (University of Michigan Press, 2020), which received the 2019 CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies Fellowship award, the 2021 Dance Studies Association de la Torre Bueno best book award, and the 2021 ATHE Outstanding Book Award. Kareem is co-editor of Queer Nightlife (University of Michigan Press) and curator of www.criticalauntystudies.com. He holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, and previously served as Embrey Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Job Titles:
- Head of Fundraising, Reutlingen University
Job Titles:
- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
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- Associate Professor, Department of Visual and Performing Arts, Merrimack College
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- Assistant Director of the Academic Resource Center
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- Professor of Theatre, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Job Titles:
- Professor of the Practice
- Professor of the Practice, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
KHARY SAEED JONES engages film projects that explore the tensions between fiction, memory, and everyday life. His films and collaborations have screened at Sundance, SXSW, MoMA, CIFF, Full Frame, ICA Boston, and many other festivals and venues. As a writer-director, his work includes the short films Hug, Three and a Half Thoughts, Chrysalis, and the forthcoming feature-length films Night Fight and Gumbo. Jones has also served on the editorial teams behind the documentary features: Where the Pavement Ends (PBS WORLD Channel/America ReFramed), Black Memorabilia (PBS/Independent Lens), Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart (PBS/American Masters), He Named Me Malala (Fox Searchlight, 2015), Sembene! (Kino Lorber), and The World According to Dick Cheney (Showtime).
Born and raised in Camden, New Jersey, Jones is the recipient of awards, grants, and fellowships from the AFI Dallas, the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Mass Cultural Council, the LEF Foundation, the Points North Institute, the Telly Awards, and the Sundance Institute. He studied at Columbia University (MA, MFA) and Morehouse College (BA), and he is currently a Professor of the Practice in Drama and Film at Tufts University where he teaches storytelling for the screen and advises students developing both scripted and documentary projects from inception to edit. He is a recipient of Firelight Media's 2021 William Greaves Fund and is a 2022-23 fellow of both the Harvard Film Study Center and the Tufts Center for the Humanities.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Core Curriculum, Boston University
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- Fletcher Professor of Oratory Emeritus
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- Parochial Vicar, St. John the Evangelist, North Chelmsford
Job Titles:
- Director
- Assistant Professor of Dramatic Literature
- Assistant Professor, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
- Fletcher Foundation Assistant Professor of Dramatic Literature
Lilian (Lily) Mengesha is the Fletcher Foundation Assistant Professor of Dramatic Literature in the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, and the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism and Diaspora. Her research and teaching live at the intersection of critical Indigenous studies, gender and sexuality studies and performance theory. Her current book project, Critical Dreaming: Performance and Decoloniality in the Americas, argues for dreaming as a critical tool for decolonial practice, particularly in the works of Indigenous-centered and feminist artists throughout North and Central America. Her research seeks to illuminate how artists use their bodies as active agents for documenting legacies of dispossession as well as blueprints for healing and transformation.
She is the receipt of the 2021 Career Enhancement Fellowship through the Institute for Citizens and Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson Foundation). Starting in November 2021, she will serve on the Executive Committee for the American Society for Theatre Research.
In the 2021-2022 academic year, Dr. Mengesha co-collaborated on a New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC) research seminar entitled "Undisciplining Performance" along with fellow performance studies scholars Christine Mok (URI), AB Brown (Colby College) and Tufts colleague Kareem Khubchandani. In addition to the NEHC award, Dr. Mengesha's research has been supported by various awards, grants and fellowships including the Center for Humanities at Tufts, MIT School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the American Society for Theatre Research, the Joukowsky Family Foundation, the Cogut Center for the Humanities, the Pembroke Center for the Research and Teaching of Women, the Social Science Research Council and Mellon Mays Foundation.
In addition to her research, Dr. Mengesha works as a director and dramaturge, and collaborates on performance events and installations.
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- Costume Designer at Tufts
- Distinguished Senior Lecturer
- Distinguished Senior Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Linda Ross Girard has been the faculty costume designer at Tufts since 2007. Linda's costume designs have been seen on New York stages and at regional theatres around the country, including 2econd Stage, The Alley Theatre, Hartford Stage, and Seattle Repertory Theatre. While primarily focusing on costume design for the theater, she has also designed costumes for dance and film, designed lighting for theatre, and assisted costume designers on projects for film, television and opera. She was the associate costume designer on numerous theatre productions including Broadway and London's West End. Favorite projects include working with Tony Kushner on Homebody/Kabul at New York Theatre Workshop, August Wilson's Jitney at the Alley in Houston, Heart of Grace for the Chinese-American dance company H.T. Chen and Dancers, and Our Class and the web series Old Guy here at Tufts. She also has worked as a specialty costume painter/distresser and makeup artist. Locally she has designed costumes and/or makeup for productions at Newton Nomad Theatre, Firehouse Theatre of Marblehead, and Salem Theatre Company.
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- Chairman of Theatre, Boston College
Mac Irvine is a queer writer, curator, and PhD student in Theatre & Performance Studies at Tufts University. Their interdisciplinary work explores the gendered and racialized labor of identity, community, and movement making in nightlife and performance spaces in Texas. Their scholarship has been supported by the Tufts' Graduate School of Arts and Sciences' Fung E.M. Humanities Summer Fellowship. Mac teaches courses on feminist, queer, and trans* studies and performance studies, and has developed open education resources as a pedagogy fellow at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies. They are a researcher and curator with the Chicago Black Social Culture Map, a project of Honey Pot Performance. Mac is a regular curator and collaborator with Texas-based performers and organizers p1nkstar, Y2K, Thee Gay Agenda, and others. They have also worked with Austin-based organizations including Badgerdog, OutYouth, and The Austin Chronicle. In 2019, Mac received an MA in Women's & Gender Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, where their performance ethnography of queer nightlife creators in Chicago was recognized with the department's award for outstanding thesis. Mac received their B.S.J. in Magazine Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2014.
Manjari Mukherjee is a PhD student whose research interests include trauma studies, gender and citizenship studies, and race and minority studies in India. She completed her MPhil in Theatre and Performance Studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi. Her dissertation focused on the legitimate and illegitimate performance practices the Anglo-Indians community between 1940 and 1950 in Calcutta and Bombay. As an academic, she has presented her research at the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) and Indian society for Theatre Research (ISTR) and has published a part of her dissertation with the Theatre Research International (TRI). Manjari is a trained Kathak dancer and a theatre practitioner. Prior to joining the graduate department at Tufts, Manjari worked as an Arts Manager for Mojarto, India's largest curated e-commerce art portal. Manjari completed her bachelors (BA) in English Literature (Honours) from Presidency College, Kolkata; and masters (MA) in Arts and Aesthetics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
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- Professor of Theatre, Suffolk University
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- Artist in Residence in the Department
- Visiting Artist, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Marisa Plasencia is an Artist in Residence in the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. She comes to Tufts from Reed College where she was a Visiting Assistant Professor in Dance. Marisa's research examines discrete forms of protest at the intersection of postmodern dance, visual art, and intercultural performance practices. She was awarded a 2021-2022 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship to support the completion of her dissertation, which was titled "Black Minimalisms: Subterfuge, Pastiche, and Task in Choreographies of Routine Violence." As an artist-scholar, Marisa's artistic practice explores the complex boundaries between twin bodies. Her work was most recently shown at the Risk/Reward Festival of New Performance in Portland, Oregon. She received her PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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- Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies, Allegheny College
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- Assistant Professor of Comedic Arts at Emerson College
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- Professor of the Practice
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- Professor of Theatre History, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
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- Lecturer in Theatre Studies, Boston College
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- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
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- Graduate Student Affairs Administrator, University of Chicago
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- Core Faculty Member at Tom Todoroff Conservatory in NYC a Senior Associate at Cooper & Cooper Real Estate
Mia Levenson is a PhD candidate and dramaturg whose research explores the intersections of biomedical science, race, and theatre. Her research interests include the history of science and medicine, representations of epidemics and disease, as well as performances and presentations of scientific racism in theatre and in popular culture. Her dissertation explores the proliferation of eugenic science in early 20th century American popular performances. Mia's research has been supported by the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine. She currently serves as the 2021-2023 Graduate Representative for the American Theatre and Drama Society. She has presented at the Comparative Drama Conference, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the American Society for Theatre Research. You can find her work in Theatre Journal and Journal of American Drama and Theatre as well as the edited collections, Monsters in Performance: Essays on the Aesthetics of Disqualification (eds. Michael Chemers and Analola Santana, Routledge, 2022) and Identity, Culture, and the Science Performance, Volume 1: From the Lab to the Streets (eds. Vivian Appler and Meredith Conti, Bloomsbury, 2022). She holds a BA in Theatre and a B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park as well as an MA in Theatre and Performance Studies from Tufts University.
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- Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, InsideTrack
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- Associate Professor of Theatre, Fordham University
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- Affiliate Professor, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Morocco
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- Theatre and Chair of Dept of Theatre, Illinois College
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- Associate Professor of Theatre, Loyola University
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- Assistant
- Technical Director
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- Administrator
- Associate Professor, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
- Author of Memory, Transitional Justice
- Department Chair of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
- Professor
Noe Montez is the author of Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina. The book considers how theatre, as a site of activism, can produce memory narratives that change the public's reception to governmental policies on human rights violations. He is also the editor of the translation of Argentine playwright Santiago Loza's work, titled Nothing to Do with Love and Other Plays, (co-edited with Loza and Samuel Buggeln). Currently, he is writing a book about Black activism in contemporary U.S. sports, collaborating with Olga Sanchez Saltveit on the Routledge Companion to Latinx Theatre and Performance, and developing a project on the intersections between Critical University Studies and the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies. From 2018-2021, Noe served as the editor of Theatre Topics.
Other publications include articles in Theatre Topics, Theatre History Studies, American Theatre, Latin American Theatre Review, Texas Theatre Journal, New England Theatre Journal, Howlround, The Journal of Religion and Theatre. He has also contributed essays to the edited collections Public Theatres and Theatre Publics, Seeking Common Ground: Latinx and Latin American Performance, Sporting Performances: Politics and Play, Teaching Theatre/Theory in Today's Theatre Studio, Classroom, and Communities, and Celebrating Latino Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Cultural Traditions.
Professor Montez is deeply engaged in research about graduate education in Theatre and Performance Studies. He is currently conducting a study about the career trajectories and job placement patterns of every Theatre and Performances Studies PhD produced in the United States from 2011 to present.
Noe has presented his academic work for several organizations and conferences including: the American Society for Theatre Researchers, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the Modern Language Association, the American Studies Association, the Latin American Studies Association, the Hemispheric Institute of Politics and Performance, the Comparative Drama Conference, the Mid-America Theatre Conference, the Latinx Theatre Commons, and Situating August Wilson in the Canon and the Curriculum Conference at Howard University. As ATHE's Vice President for Professional Development, he authored the association's tenure and promotion guidelines. He will begin serving as ASTR's Vice President for Publications in November, 2022
In 2012, Dr. Montez directed Welcome to Arroyo's, the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies' first staging of a production written by a Latino playwright. Noe has also directed productions of Krapp's Last Tape, Footfalls, Next to Normal, and An Enemy of the People on the Tufts campus. Outside of campus, He is a freelance actor and director who has directed or performed at Cleveland Public Theatre, Theatre Ninjas, Phoenix Theatre, Sleeping Weazel, Fifth Floor Collective, and the Bloomington Playwright's Project. He has served on the board of directors for Boston's Company One Theatre. Noe also teaches as affiliate faculty for the Consortium for Race and Diaspora.
Montez received a grant from the American Society for Theatre Research for his work convening the 4th Symposium on PhD Programs in Theatre and Performance Studies, Tufts Innovates and Tufts Collaborates grants for his work on academic job markets outside of the professoriate, the Mid-America Theatre Conference Robert A. Schanke Award, the Tufts Faculty Multicultural Service Award, a Neubauer Faculty Fellowship in 2012-2013, and a fellowship with the Center for Humanities at Tufts from 2015-2016. He also received the 2021 Graduate School of Arts And Sciences Award for Outstanding Mentorship and Advising of Graduate Students.
As a university administrator, Noe is committed to labor equity, sustainability, and creating an anti-racist curriculum within the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies.
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- Professor Emeritus, Virginia Commonwealth University
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- Senior Lecturer, Drama and Performing Arts, School of Music and Performing Arts, Bath Spa University
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- Lecturer, Lake Michigan College
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- Assistant Professor of Theatre, Boston Conservatory at Berklee
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- Artistic Engagement Manager, McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ
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- Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre, College of Charleston
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- Assistant Professor of Theatre, DePaul University
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- Distinguished Writer in Residence, New York University Science Writer, Wall Street Journal
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- Director of Syracuse University in Florence
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- Associate Professor of Theatre, College of the Holy Cross
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- Associate Professor of Theatre at CUNY
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- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
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- Senior Lecturer Emerita
- Senior Lecturer Emerita, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
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- Founder, Double Edge Theatre
Stephanie Engel is a PhD candidate who currently works as the Communications and Program Manager for the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice at the University of Minnesota. Stephanie's dissertation focuses on consumption, debt, and healthcare in contemporary United States life. Her other research works within disability and gender studies, race and performance, and U.S./Latin America relations. Through her research and educational praxis, Stephanie has received the Tisch Graduate Fellowship in Arts & Humanities, the GSAS Fung E.M Humanities Summer Fellowship, and the GIFT Fellowship.
Before Tufts, Stephanie studied at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom and received a BA from Allegheny College, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude with a dual degree in Theatre and History. Stephanie has also previously worked in dramaturgy and community outreach for the likes of A.R.T., Company One, the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, the Guthrie Theater, and Mixed Blood Theatre.
Steve Drum is a PhD candidate at Tufts. His research interests include celebrity performance, film history, and LGBTQ popular entertainments. He has presented his work at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the International Celebrity Studies Conference, the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association, and the Northeast Modern Language Association. Steve works as a Writing and Public Speaking consultant for the Academic Resource Center at Tufts. He also serves as chair for the Academic and Career Development committee in Tufts' Graduate Student Council. He earned a BFA in Drama from New York University and an MA in Cinema Studies from Savannah College of Art and Design.
Sung-Min Kim is an MA/PhD student who received a BA from Tufts University in both American Studies and Art History with a focus on Asian American Studies and art created by marginalized communities. Sung-Min grew up transnationally between South Korea and the United States and her research stems from her bodily experience of being in flight and searching for landing as an immigrant in a settler nation. Sung-Min has a deep relationship with Boston Chinatown where she worked as a project manager, researcher, and youth worker. In a multimedia art project called "Washing," Sung-Min worked with artist Lily Xie to showcase community stories and the legacy of the I-93 and I-90 highways built through Boston Chinatown. "Washing" received the MIT Transmedia Storytelling Initiative Grant to recreate the art installation online, in which Sung-Min's research was put directly in conversation with resident quotes, creating a collage of oral history and historical/theoretical research. Like so, Sung-Min seeks to ground her research in community and vice versa. Sung-Min's research interests include performances of belonging by Asian Americans in the context of US settler colonialism, asociality and invisibility as critical performance, and the sky as a site of transformation for Asian American bodies in flight.
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- Assistant Professor of Theatre at Salve Regina University
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- Associate Professor, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
- Director of Film and Media Studies
- Is Director of Tufts 's Film and Media Studies Program. Her Research Areas Are Film, Television, Media Industries and Culture. She Is the Author of Demon in the Box
Tasha Oren is Director of Tufts's Film and Media Studies Program. Her research areas are film, television, media industries and culture. She is the author of Demon in the Box: Jews, Arabs, Politics and Culture and Food TV, and the co-editor of several books including The Handbook of Contemporary Feminism (Routledge), Global Currents: Media and Technology Now (Rutgers University Press), East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture (New York University Press), Global Asian American Cultures (New York University Press) and Global Television Formats - Understanding Television Across Borders, which won the Best Edited Collection prize from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Oren has published articles on film, television, Asian American Studies, screenwriting, Neurodiversity and food media; she sits on the editorial boards of several journals and is a book review editor for Signs: The Journal of Women in Culture and Society. She is the Tufts representative for GCWS, The Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women and Sexuality.
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- Lecturer
- Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Taylor Travassos-Lomba began dancing in 2007 alongside his crew, Swift Charakterz, based in Rhode Island and Southcoast Massachusetts. Known by his bboy name "RTHYM", Taylor is a top-level competitor in New England dance battle scene and has been invited to compete, judge, and speak at numerous events in the breakin' community. He also produces original dance music, hosts practices, and organizes local events in the cities near his hometown. Taylor has been teaching dance in various settings for over a decade and holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics and Philosophy from Brown University. He began teaching undergraduate courses in 2015 and was recently featured as a guest speaker at TEDxTufts 2019: Mosaic in Motion. Taylor started teaching at Tufts in Fall of 2019 and also teaches courses at Bridgewater State University and College of the Holy Cross.
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- Lecturer
- Distinguished Senior Lecturer
- Distinguished Senior Lecturer, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Ted Simpson is a Lecturer and Set Designer. Ted has designed over 100 shows for various theaters throughout the northeast. His work has been seen at George Street Playhouse, The Delaware Theater Company, Capital Repertory Theater, Arena Stage, and numerous summer theaters throughout New York and New England. Locally his work has been seen at The Lyric Stage, Merrimack Repertory Theater, The North Shore Music Theater, The Firehouse, The Nora Theater, The Hasty Pudding Theater and New Repertory Theater, to name a few. In addition Ted served as the resident designer for the Brevard Music Center for three seasons, designing operas and musicals in the hills of North Carolina. In New York he designed a half dozen Off-Broadway plays including a recent revival of Rhinoceros, Cotton Patch Gospel and The Good Doctor. Also in New York, Mr. Simpson was an assistant designer on many Broadway shows, and served on the design staff for the Late Show With David Letterman and The Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. In addition to design work, Ted has also worked extensively as a scenic artist painting scenery and back-drops for theaters, rental houses and opera and ballet companies throughout the country. Ted has an MFA from Brandeis University where he studied set and lighting design.
Teri Incampo is a director and doctoral candidate whose research explores depictions of paid domestic labor on the stage and screen, the formation of celebrity and stardom, and the legacy of Black actors working in mainstream American entertainment between 1890 and 1990. She earned an MA in Theatre and Performance Studies from Tufts. Her work has been published by the New England Theatre Journal and she is a 2021-2022 Graduate Dissertation Fellow at the Center for the Humanities at Tufts. In 2019, she received the Mother Board Prize for Graduate Student Research and Writing from the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality for her work on gesture and protest performance in the Black Lives Matter movement. Teri has presented her research at conferences organized by the American Society for Theatre Research, the Mid-America Theatre Conference, and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. She co-founded the Boston-based fringe theatre company Exiled Theatre in 2014. Teri is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at Trinity College.
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- Professor, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Saudi Arabia
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- Associate Lecturer, University of Massachusetts - Boston
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- Senior Instructor in Classics, Case Western Reserve University
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- Theatre Emeritus, Messiah College
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- Associate Professor of Theatre, Connecticut College
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- Grantwriter, Windhover Performing Arts Center
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- Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship Chicago Booth, University of Chicago
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- Associate Professor and Chair of Drama Creation and Application, National University of Taiwan
Whitney Brady-Guzmán is a PhD student whose research includes resource extraction, cultural citizenship, and depictions of national prosperity in Latin America. Current work examines how cultural heritage sites in Mexico are oriented around strategic performances of nationhood, colonial legacy, race, and territory. She received a BA in Drama and Religion from Vassar College, and an MA from Tufts University with a thesis titled "Processing the Pain of Others: Witnessing Semana Santa Penitents in Taxco Through Procession." She is serving as the ATHE Latinx, Indigenous, and the Americas Focus Group Graduate Student Representative throughout the 2021-2023 academic years. Whitney is also an award-winning lighting designer who has worked professionally throughout the northeastern United States.