Current Students & Alumni

Current Students

• Minou Arjomand, B.A., Comparative Literature and German Studies, Columbia University
  Area of Specialization: modern drama and opera
  Research Interests:  German and Russian modernism, social theory, contemporary opera.
  Dissertation: "Theatre on Trial: Politics and Performance, 1930-1970"
  
  (Elfriede) Michi Barall, A.B., Humanities Honors, Stanford  University; M.F.A., Graduate Acting Program, New York  University; M.A., Theatre, Hunter College, City University of  New York.
  Areas of specialization: commercial theatre and spectacle; theories of transnationalism and globalization; migrant  identities, alterity and multiculturalism.
  Research interests: Asian-American studies, Attic tragedy and contemporary adaptations of Greek theatre; contemporary European  dance-theatre; political anthropology of the body; cultural  memory.
  
  Joseph Cermatori, A.B., English, Princeton University;  M.F.A., Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism, Yale University  School of Drama.
  Area of Specialization: baroque theatre
  Research Interests: comparative modernisms and continental philosophy; early modern drama; anachronism and  historiography; rhetorical mediations between philosophical  and dramatic practices; narratives of (dis/re)enchantment;  the history of skepticism; the self-as-performance;  affect(ation)s, mannerism(s), expression(ism),  aesthetic(ism)s; opera and music-theatre; gesture and  performance; allegory and theatricality.
  
  Amir Fainaru, B.A., Theatre Arts; M.A., Interdisciplinary Program in the Arts, Tel Aviv University, Israel. 
  Areas of Specialization: Performance and Performativity; Semiotic and Phenomenological Approaches to Theatre; Philosophy of Language and Pragmatics; Theatricality. 
  Research Interests: Theories of Spatiality and Temporality; Literary and Critical Theory; Continental Philosophy; Subjectivity; Theatre and Philosophy; Presence/Absence. 
  
  Jason Fitzgerald, A.B., American History&  Literature,  Harvard University; M.F.A., Dramaturgy&  Dramatic Criticism,  Yale University.
  Areas of specialization: modern drama and theatrical aesthetics
  Research interests: presence and theatricality in modern drama; spectatorship; representations of the celebrity in  theatre and culture; musical theatre; the interrelation of  aesthetic philosophy and performance theory; queer  theatre/theory; media studies; literary theory;  spectatorship; theories of discourse, truth, and rhetoric
  
  Susanna Gellert: B.A., History, University of Chicago; M.F.A,  Directing, Yale University.
  Area of specialization: political theatre
  Research interests:  early modern drama; modern drama and the  avant garde; mass media and mass entertainment; the  performance of everyday life on stage; food and theatre;  representations of violence in performance; carnival,  burlesque, and circus; amateurs and amateurism on stage.

  Annie Holt: B.A., Dramaturgy, University of Virginia.
  Areas of specialization: Modern drama; English Renaissance drama; gender studies.
  Research interests: costume and set design; opera; theories of liveness, presence, and embodiment.
  Dissertation: "The Emergence of the Costume Designer, 1870-1920"
  
  Ewa Kara, B.A./M.A., Theatre Studies, Jagiellonian  University, Krakow, Poland.
  Areas of specialization:  scenography, contemporary theatre and visual culture
  Research interests: contemporary operatic scenography;  19th and 20th-century stage design; scenographic theory;  intersections of scenography and screen aesthetics; modern  and contemporary German theatre; historical and  contemporary avant-gardes; Polish theatre.
  Dissertation: "Beyond the Music: Contemporary Operatic Director-Designers in the USA and Europe."

  Daniel Larlham, B.A., Theatre Studies/English, Yale  University; M.F.A, Graduate Acting Program, Tisch School of  the Arts, New York University.
  Areas of specialization: twentieth-century theatre and  performance; acting theory; South African theatre and  performance.
  Research interests: theatre and philosophy; performance  theory; theatre phenomenology
  Dissertation: "The Meaning in Mimesis: A Study in the  Philosophy of Acting."
  
  Emily Madison, B.A., English & Theatre, Washington University in St. Louis; M.F.A., Dramaturgy, Columbia University.
  Areas of specialization: Shakespeare and Performance, contemporary American drama.
  Research interests: early modern drama, performance theory, gender and performance, acting theory.

• Darragh Martin, B.A., Drama and English, Trinity College, Dublin.
  Areas of specialization: Shakespeare in performance; modern drama.
  Research Interests: animals in performance; Victorian drama; theatre
  and education; youth culture and performance.
  Dissertation: "The Master of the Rebels: Adolescent Encounters with
  Shakespeare, 1944-2010."
  
  Sarah Ina Meyers, B.A., Music and Philosophy, Harvard University.
  Area of specialization: opera.
  Research interests: performance theory, postmodern  scenography, cognitive science, film theory, baroque  performance and conceptions of the body and movement,  theories of the uncanny/fantastic.
  
  Nathaniel G. Nesmith, B.A., Criminal Justice, John Jay  College of Criminal Justice (CUNY); B.F.A, Theatre, Temple  University; M.A., Criminal Justice, John Jay College of  Criminal Justice (CUNY); M.F.A., Playwriting, Columbia  University.
  Areas of Specialization:20th Century American Drama;  Criminal Justice; and Playwriting.
  Research Interests:Contemporary American drama;  African-American literature and culture; American protest  literature; dramas of the Civil Rights Movement; dramatic  writing techniques; performance studies; race and ethnicity  theories; dramatic theories; criminal theories; and theories  of justice.
  
  Noémie Ndiaye-Reltgen, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris; M.A., English Literature and Theatre,  Paris-Sorbonne University. 
  Areas of specialization : early modern and 17th century theatre ; history of representations. 
  Research interests : emergence and developments of Western dramatic realism ; dramatic conventions  and stylization ; non-Western forms of theatre ; blackface theatre and race studies ; the limits of representability (sex and violence on stage); acting. 
  
  Michelle Shafer, A.B, English and Theatre, Bryn Mawr College; M.F.A., Dramaturgy, Columbia University
  Areas of Specialization: site specific and environmental performance, avant-garde and experimental theatre, early modern drama, dramaturgy, directing
  Research Interests: performance theory, feminist criticism, ecocriticism, visual theory, phenomenology, mythology, virtual performance space
  Dissertation: Shifting Terrain: Landscape, Ecology and Environmental Theatre
  
  Jessica Simon, B.F.A., Drama with English and Art History  minors, New York University (Tisch); M.A., English,  University of Chicago.
  Area of Specialization: Nineteenth-Century Theatre and Literature
  Research Interests: Intersections of nineteenth-century  theatre and popular culture forms with ?modern? drama;  intermedial exchanges in the long nineteenth-century; media  theory; theatre and theatricality in the nineteenth-century  British novel; theories of modernity; realism, symbolism,  decadence; phantasmagoria and spectacular theatre;  melodrama; configurations of gender in turn-of-the-century  ballet, modern dance, and theatre; movement,  presence/absence, and embodiment in the novel and theatre.

  Shilarna Stokes, B.A., Literature and Theater Studies, Yale University; M.F.A., Directing, Columbia University; MPhil, Theatre, Columbia University.
  Areas of specialization: nineteenth- and twentieth-century drama, theater history and performance theory.
  Research Interests: mass theatre, culture and politics; performances of race, ethnicity, class and community; melodrama; postcolonial Anglophone drama; Asian American theatre and performance; contemporary South Asian theatre and performance in diaspora.
  Dissertation: “Playing the Crowd: Mass Pageants in Europe and the United States (1905-1935)”

  Tim Youker, A.B., English, Stanford University
  Areas of Specialization: Twentieth-Century Theatre with an Anglophone and German emphasis; comparative modernisms; memory studies; gender studies
  Research Interests: Historical, documentary, and commemorative performance; connections between textuality and embodiment in modernist theatre and poetry; poetry readings and elocution demonstrations as performance genres; depictions of journalism and print culture in drama
  Dissertation: "The Theatre of Documents: Performance, Truth, and Modernity"

Recent Publications by Ph.D. Students

Minou Arjomand
• "Three Books on Stage" n + 1 (online), September 2010.
  "Workshopping Edinburgh," Hunter On-line Theater Review, September 2010.
  "E.M. Forster's Billy Budd and the Collaborative Work of Opera," Theatre Survey: 51 (2010).
  "La Bohème (review)," Opera Quarterly 25.3-4 (2009).

Jason Fitzgerald
• "Performance Review: Taylor Mac's Lily's Revenge," Theatre Journal (forthcoming)
• "I Had a Dream: Rose's Turn, Musical Theatre, and the Star Effigy," Studies in Musical Theatre 3:3 (2009).

Daniel Larlham
• "The Felt Truth of Mimetic Experience: Motions of the Soul and the Kinetics of Passion in the Eighteenth-Century Theatre," The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation (2011).
  "Dancing Pina Bausch," TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies 54.1 (2010).
• "Journeys into the South African Psyche: Brett Bailey and Third World Bunfight," Theater 39.1 (2009).

Alexis Soloski
• Book Review: "Trauma and Patience, The Scar of Visibility: Medical Performances and Contemporary Art by Petra Kuppers," Theater 38.1 (2008).
• Theater Review: "Breaking Ice: Lokal Festival #1," Hunter On-line Theater Review, April 2008, http://www.hotreview.org/articles/breakingice.htm.

Recent Artistic Work by Ph.D. Students

Minou Arjomand
Dramaturg, Innenleben: Musiktheaterausstellung Bockenheimer Depot, Frankfurt am Main (October 2010)

Annie Holt
• Artistic Director, Morningside Opera; Director, Benjamin Britten, The Beggar's Opera (April 2010)

Susanna Gellert
• Director, You Can't Take it With You, University of Rochester; The Duchess of Malfi, Florida State University; Marat/Sade, Bard College

Sara Ina Meyers
• Stage Director, La Traviata, Metropolitan Opera; Assistant Director, The Nose (production by William Kentridge), Metropolitan Opera; Stage Director, The Little Prince, New York City Opera, Lithuania National Opera, San Francisco Opera

Mirabelle Ordinaire
• Assistant Director, Euripides, La folie d'Héraclès, directed by Christophe Perton, Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier/Comédie française, Paris (May 28-June 30, 2010)

Ph.D. Placement

• Ehren Fordyce (2002) Stanford; currently working in Berlin


• Tamsen Wolff (2002) Princeton


• Matthew Smith (2003) Boston University


• Peter Campbell (2003) Penn State-Berks; currently at Ramapo College of New Jersey


• Ellen MacKay (2003) Indiana University


• Lisa Brenner (2004) Montclair State University


• Nina Hein (2005) American University in Dubai


• Miranda Lundskaer-Nielsen (2005) Bath Spa University, England


• Elizabeth Ruf-Maldonado (2006) Boricua College, NY


• Kelina Gotman (2008) King's College, London


• David Kornhaber (2009) University of Texas


• Donna Fusco Kornhaber (2009) University of Texas