Research

My current research focuses on alterity in nonprofessionalizing/“amateur” theatre practices. My current case study is North America’s longest-running women-run theatre group, Alumnae Theatre Company. In my book (in press) on Alumnae, I argue that in Canada, despite widespread participation, nonprofessionalizing, participatory theatre transformed from nearly the only place to involve local talent in the 1910s through 1930s to near complete discursive obscurity in the media and academe by the 1980s. While many companies either professionalized or faded away, a handful of theatre groups, like Alumnae, reinvented their programming to adapt to changing tastes and production conditions from one decade to the next. Alumnae alone have maintained their women-only membership rule for over a century. My edited play anthology Hot Thespian Action! Ten Premiere Plays from Walterdale Playhouse (AUP 2008) tracks new play production at Alberta’s longest-running theatre company.

On Alumnae, Walterdale, and other Canadian theatre topics I’ve published in the journals Theatre Research in Canada, Canadian Theatre Review, and Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, as well as in Heather Davis-Fisch’s collection Canadian Performance Histories and Historiographies (PCP 2017). I’ve also presented papers at most CATR conferences since 2000 as well as the MLA, NMLA, IFTR, ACSUS, MANECCS/SACS, and MATC conferences, the What Signifies a Theatre? conference at Royal Halloway U, and the Whose Show Is It, Anyways? community engaged conference at Thompson Rivers University.

My creative work encompasses university and local productions across Canada, including co-writing and directing the world premiere of the verbatim play No White Picket Fence (2017) for Theatre St. Thomas, directing the world premieres of Ross/Griffith/Whittaker’s Animating Rabbit-town for Solo Chicken/Theatre St. Thomas, and Chris Fulton’s Vanceboro (2012) for NotaBle Acts, and directing the New Brunswick premieres of Michel Marc Bouchard’s The Coronation Voyage (2014) and Michael Hollingsworth’s Trudeau and the FLQ (2015) for Theatre St. Thomas. No White Picket Fence is published by Talonbooks (2019).

My research and conference leadership has benefited from several funding opportunities, including a SSHRC ASPP grant for my Alumnae book and a SSHRC Connection Grant as conference chair for CATR 2022: Performing Emergence: RePlay, ReCollect, ReExist.

As an active member of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research (CATR), I have served on and chaired multiple committees, sat on several conference programming committees, and served on the CATR Board as Atlantic Representative, Vice President, and, since 2022, President.