IPTD DOCTORAL STUDENTS (2011-2012)
Michael Anderson received his BA in Theatre from Trinity College in Hartford, CT and his MA in Theater History and Criticism from Brooklyn College CUNY. His research interests include the performance and representation of HIV/AIDS in American culture, queer and masculinity theory, as well as LGBTQ performance histories.
Sara Armstrong received her BA in Theatre from Oklahoma State University and her MA in Theatre from the University of Kansas. Her dissertation explores how performers come to understand rhythm, conceptually and somatically, through their participation in body-centered training programs. Sara is a Fellow at NU’s Searle Center for Teaching Excellence.
Christine Simonian Bean received her B.A. in Drama from University of California, Irvine, and her M.A. in Theatre Studies from University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include intersections between food and performance, especially as relates to nationalism, exoticism, and otherness.
Lauren Beck received her BA in Theatre from UC San Diego and her MA from San Diego State. Her research currently focuses on intersections between photography and performance, including the history of theatre photography, tourist and wedding photography, and photography as performance.
Christine Scippa Bhasin received her B.A. from Northwestern University and her M.A. in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College. Her dissertation examines the tradition of theatrical performance in early modern Italian convents. She conducted her research in Venice, Italy with the support of a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. She is an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/ACLS Early Career Fellow.
David Calder earned his BA in French literature with a minor in Literature & Psychology from Trinity College in Hartford, CT. His dissertation examines how French street theatre companies commemorate industrial heritage in de- and hyper-industrializing communities. In 2011-2012, he will be away from Northwestern as a Fulbright Fellow in France.
John Carnwath received his BA and MA from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His dissertation examines the historical development of publicly subsidized theatres in Germany (1815 to 1933). His research in Germany has been supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Jordana Cox received her BA in philosophy from the University of Toronto. Her research interests include theorizations of democracy in theatre historiography and aesthetics.
Carla Della Gatta received her BA in English from UC Berkeley and her MA in English from San Francisco State University. Her research interests include the role of Shakespeare festivals in contemporary American culture, appropriations of Shakespearean plays in Spanish, and Spanish Golden Age theatre.
Gina Marie Di Salvo holds a BA in English Lit. from Catholic University and an MA in Theatre Studies from Ohio State. Her dissertation examines how theatrical representations of saints constructed, revised, and reshaped ideas of orthodoxy, heterodoxy, and sanctity during England's long period of Reformation.
Louise Edwards received her BA in Theatre and English from Notre Dame and her MA in Drama from Washington University (St. Louis). Her dissertation focuses on theatrical and biographical representations of the Restoration actress in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Shannon Fitzsimons received her BA in Theatre from Hamilton College. Her dissertation chronicles contemporary American new play development. Shannon is a professional dramaturg; she is currently working with Tony winner Mark Medoff on a new six-play cycle and with Chicago playwright Nambi Kelley on a contemporary adaptation of Antigone.
La Donna L. Forsgren holds a BA from Western Oregon University and MA from Brigham Young University in Theatre History, Theory and Criticism. Her dissertation examines the contributions of women dramatists of the 1960s-1970s Black Arts Movement. La Donna is currently a Dissertation Fellow at Luther College. In 2011-2012, she will be away from Northwestern as an Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University of Oregon.
Megan Geigner received her BS in Theatre and her MA in Theatre History and Criticism from Illinois State University. She also holds an MA in Liberal Studies from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Her research interests include turn-of-the-century non-traditional theatre such as fairs, Chautauqua and tent revivals and how performance affects ideas of identity, nationality and nationhood.
Jessica Hinds-Bond received her BFA in Theatre Design and Technology from Auburn University and her MA in Theatre from Villanova University. Her research interests include post-Soviet and contemporary Russian theatre.
Lizzie Leopold received her BFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and her MA in Performance Studies from New York University. Her research interests include the historical and theoretical intersection of twentieth century American concert dance and organizational structures, as they relate to commerce and business. She is the Artistic Director of the modern dance company the Leopold Group.
Lisa Kelly holds a BA in Dramatic Arts from UNC-Chapel Hill and an MFA in Theatre Pedagogy from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research interests focus on working class actresses who became politically active in the women's suffrage movements in America and Great Britain.
Keith Byron Kirk holds a BA in Theatre/Performance from SUNY and an MA in Performance Studies from NYU. His dissertation examines the recontextualization of individual and group identity within African American funeral rituals and eulogy. He will spend 2011-2012 in Texas as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Houston.
Laura A. Lodewyck holds a BA in Communication & Theatre and Psychology from the University of Notre Dame and an MFA in Performance from Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts. Her research interests include the transformative nature of performance as explored through cognitive psychology.
Dwayne Mann received his BFA in Musical Theatre Performance and his MA in Performance Studies from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. His research interests focus on feeling-labour, racial identity production, queer affects, and aurality at sites of musical theatre production.
Ira S. Murfin holds a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU and an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His research interests include occurrence and reception of talk performance. He is a founding member of the devised theatre collective the Laboratory for the Development of Substitute Materials.
Aileen Robinson received her BA in Literature at Harvard University. Her current research interests include nineteenth-century British pantomime and theatrical technologies.
Tara Rodman received her BA in Theatre and English from Yale University. Her research interests include the relationship between modernist theatre and visual art.
Kati Sweaney holds an interdisciplinary BA from Reed College in Literature and Theatre. Her dissertation explores performances about the human brain aimed at non-scientist audiences. She is an editorial assistant at Atrium: The Report of the Northwestern Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program.
Paul Thelen earned his BA in Political Science and BFA in Theatre from Creighton University and his JD from the Iowa College of Law. His dissertation explores veracity in legal storytelling and courtroom performance. Paul serves as Assistant Master in the Residential College and is a Graduate Fellow in the Leadership Program.
Dawn Tracey received her BA in Theatre from the University of King's College/Dalhousie University, and her MA in Drama from the University of Alberta. Her dissertation centers contemporary puppet theatre. She holds a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Katherine Zien received her BA in English Literature from Columbia University. Her dissertation, "Claiming the Canal: Performances of Race, Labor, and Citizenship in Panama, 1904-1999," probes the history of theatre and performance in and around the former Panama Canal Zone up to the Panama Canal Handover at the turn of the century. Ms. Zien is currently completing dissertation research in Panama with a Fulbright IIE fellowship, for anticipated graduation in 2011.
