Research

My current research focuses on alterity in nonprofessionalizing / “amateur” theatre practices. My book-length study Alumnae Theatre Company: Nonprofessionalizing Theatre in Canada (UTP 2024) examines North America’s longest-running women-run theatre group. I argue that in Canada, nonprofessionalizing, participatory theatre transformed from virtually the only place to involve local talent in the early 1900s to near complete discursive obscurity in the media and academe by the 1980s, despite continued widespread participation. While some either professionalized or dissolved, a handful of nonprofessionalizing theatre groups, like Alumnae, reinvented their programming to adapt to changing tastes and production conditions from one decade to the next. Alumnae’s continued success is due in large part to their decision to maintain 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. Of note, I’ve co-written and directed the world premieres of the verbatim play No White Picket Fence (2017) for Theatre St. Thomas and Rabbit-town for Solo Chicken/Theatre St. Thomas. I’ve also directed the world premiere of Chris Fulton’s Vanceboro (2012) for NotaBle Acts, and 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 Connection Grant as conference chair for CATR 2022: Performing Emergence: RePlay, ReCollect, ReExist and numerous internal STU grants.

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.