Please give a brief background on yourself and your career.
I am currently a Professor of Theater in the Department of Theater and Dance at Bowdoin College. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. At this precise moment (fall 2015), I’m a Fulbright Scholar teaching theater and performance studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. I’m also working on a research project on digital technology, history, and performance. My research and creative work focuses on the intersections among theater, media technologies, and experimental art.
For the past 10 years, I taught at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, where I started and ran the graduate programs in Theatre and Performance. At UB I also co-founded the Techne Institute for Arts and Emerging Technologies with colleagues across the arts, humanities, and sciences. I started my career teaching in English and Theatre at Colgate University. My PhD is from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where I studied the avant-garde, experimental performance, queer theory, and what we called at the time, film and video studies (now, “Screen Studies”). I just started the new position at Bowdoin College, so although I’m very excited to be working with amazing colleagues and artists in the Netherlands, I’m also looking forward to returning to New England.
How has your career changed since you originally envisioned it at Wellesley? What other careers did you consider as a student?
Like most theater majors everywhere I was going to change the American theater, so at Wellesley I mostly focused on writing, directing, and making new work: the weirder the better. I thought I might work in film as well, but learned quickly that I was pretty bad at it. (Happily, this was in the era before ubiquitous social media circulation, so the evidence of my ineptitude is paltry.) I have to admit that I never really thought of doing anything other than theater. I did briefly consider trying to do something inadvertising, which seemed like a more financially stable alternative to being an artist. But, honestly, I never really thought about it too much. Since I wanted to work as a professional director, I applied to MFA directing programs and I went to the school that gave me a teaching assistantship: Purdue University in Indiana. After a year of studying directing in West Lafayette, Indiana, I learned two things about myself: 1) working as a professional director wasn’t the kind of life I wanted to live (too much travel, instability, weird hours); 2) I needed to leave Indiana as soon as possible. At this time, I also discovered dramaturgy and was encouraged by a professor to apply to Michigan’s new PhD program. The Michigan PhD had a strong studio component that encouraged new performance practices and brought in a range of exciting artists to work with the graduate students. It was a fun time to be in the program.
How has Wellesley contributed to your career?
People sometimes ask me about studying theater at a liberal arts college and Wellesley in particular. When I was there (1992-96) there wasn’t a formal major in Theater, so a few of us (8 in my class, I think) made up our own independent majors. I combined courses in theater with cinema studies and got to take classes in a lot of different departments: English, Italian, Philosophy, Art, Women’s Studies, and Asian Studies, among others. I argued then (and I continue to repeat today) that the study of theater is really the study of everything else: history, science, literature, psychology, etc… So, a liberal arts environment is really the best way to study it.
What Wellesley did most of all was to introduce me to exciting ideas, provide access to brilliant and passionate faculty, and offer the opportunity to learn alongside a diverse range of exceptionally talented and intelligent women. It was also a great place to take risks. I learned a lot about how to work at Wellesley; not only in the classrooms and rehearsal halls, but also from the basketball team and our coach Kathy Hagerstrom. I learned how to write more clearly and to love theory. Wellesley challenged a lot of my preexisting ideas and opened me up to whole new ways of thinking about the world. Most of all, as an academic, Wellesley gave me role models to follow. I learned a lot from Nora Hussey’s creativity and passion for the theater. I will continue to try (though will never succeed) to be as dedicated to my students as Chip Case has been to all of his over the years. To this day, Larry Rosenwald serves as an amazing example of not just how to be a committed thinker, scholar, and teacher, but also how to be an excellent human being. If it were not for these people—Chip, Kathy, Nora, and Larry—I wouldn’t be where I am now.
What is a typical work day or work week like for you?
It really depends on the week. In general, I try to work on my own research and writing every day and it’s good when I can make progress on one or more manuscripts, even if it’s just a couple of paragraphs or a blog post. I generally read 1-3 books per week, but if I’m working on a particular project, I’ll often read a lot more. When I’m traveling or in the writing phase of a project, I read less. On the best research days, I’m traveling to see new performances or meet with artists. I’m also very lucky that I can collaborate with friends and colleagues around the world. When you’re seeing cool shows and talking about compelling ideas with your friends, it doesn’t feel like work.
During the semester when I’m teaching, I’ll spend significant time each week preparing for class, mostly reading and finding new material to introduce. I have never written my lectures verbatim, but I prepare for classes the way I used to prepare for stage performance or basketball games. The goal is to learn the material so well that you can forget it and improvise. I also try to provide the same level of detailed and useful feedback that I received as a student, so I take my grading pretty seriously. It can be time-consuming, but it ebbs and flows. Over the years I’ve learned a lot from my students.
I also worked in administration at UB on new graduate programs in theatre and the Techne Institute. This is probably the closest thing I’ve had to a “real job” (other than working construction during graduate school). Admin is a lot of email, outreach, and communication as well as strategic planning. I like the strategic part: What are the goals? How can these be achieved within the existing limitations? Who are the best collaborators? The work on Techne was particularly gratifying because we worked to facilitate new projects both among UB faculty and students and with outside artists. That said, I’m loving the time away from administration. At Bowdoin, I’ll be taking over as department chair next year, so it’s nice to have a break to focus on research and catch up on my reading.
What piece of advice would you offer students looking to get into your area of interest and expertise?
Perhaps the most important thing to do for anyone getting into theater and performance is to see as much new work as possible. There’s a lot of exciting performances, but many of my personal favorites often come to the US. Festivals (check out New York in early January). You can see a lot of shows in a short amount of time and the experimental shows are often much cheaper than commercial and mainstream theater. Even seeing bad work is useful when you’re first starting out.
For students interested in working professional theater particularly as actors or directors, I would also say, don’t wait to be picked. Find the people you want to make theater with and for, and go make it. If there’s not a great role for you, write one. Make the kind of work you want to see. Theater is awesome because it’s still so cheap to make.
For people looking to get into academic theater and performance, a graduate degree is almost always necessary. Although there are positions looking for applicants with an MFA, increasingly schools are looking for applicants with a PhD even if teaching in applied fields is part of the job. So, the first goal is finding a good program that is going to prepare you for what you really want to do. If you want a professional career, you probably want an MFA. Look for one with a good reputation and pay attention to where their graduates work after school. If you want to teach or do research at the college level, you will probably need a doctorate.
In terms of doctoral programs, do pay attention to where students work after graduation. Do they mostly work in the area? Are they getting jobs at research universities or small liberal arts colleges? Are they getting jobs in the field and how long does it take them? While the reputation of the school and the program matters, even more important is finding a good mentor with whom you’ll work. Doctoral programs can feel long and arduous, so it is worth taking the time to find a good graduate advisor who works in your area of interest and with whom you are compatible. A good advisor doesn’t need to be always enthusiastic and friendly. Sometimes the best mentors may be the most challenging, but it should be someone who is ethical, principled, and dedicated to the success of their students. Talk to other students who have been through the program to get a sense of what it’s like and how you might fit into the environment. Whatever path you take, think about the ultimate goal and work backwards.
What do you wish you had known as a student?
I wish I had traveled more and known more about opportunities abroad. That said, I feel like I’m making up for it now. I also think I should have looked at more options for graduate school. I am grateful that I ended up where I did, but I got lucky. (I also wish I had known a bit more humility as a student. I think much of my work then was fairly pretentious.)
If you could come back and take one class at Wellesley what would it be?
I would happily return to Wellesley to repeat my independent study on modern drama with Larry Rosenwald. During the spring semester of my senior year, Larry graciously agreed to meet with me once, then twice, a week for hours to read and talk about theatre, art, literature, history, politics, and more. I loved these sessions. In many ways, I think much of my career has been about repeating the feelings of wonder and discovery that I had in his office.