Education
Ph.D., New York University, 1992.
Master of Arts, New York University: 1986.
Bachelor of Arts, Wesleyan University: 1983.
Courses
Introduction to Drama
Modern and Contemporary American Drama
Staging History: Versions of the Past in Modern Drama (honors course)
Dramatic Literature I: Dramatic Literature to 1633
Dramatic Literature II: Dramatic Literature from Ibsen to the Present
400-Level Seminars in Drama: Modern Irish Drama; Taking it like a Man: Constructions of Masculinity in American Drama; Beckett, Stoppard, Churchill: Forays in and out of the Absurd
Research Interests and Ithaca College Activities
My research interests focus primarily on the modern drama and more specifically on modern and contemporary Irish and American drama. I have published articles on Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Frank McGuinness, and Sebastian Barry, all of whom are contemporary Irish dramatists: I have also published and presented work on Bertolt Brecht, Arthur Miller, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks and Anna Deavere Smith. A particular and consuming interest of mine is the modern and contemporary history play, a genre that has been embraced and redefined by 20th and 21st-century playwrights not just in Ireland, but in America, Britain, Germany, Nigeria, and elsewhere. However, I also consider myself a generalist whose interest in dramatic literature spans many centuries and various continents.
My original two-act play, Speech Acts, was produced by Theater Catalyst in the spring of 2004, under the direction of Carol Laratonda.
I am the faculty sponsor (along with Kathleen Mulligan, in the Theatre Department) of the On the Verge play-reading series. For information about this organization and its activities, feel free to email me.
I am also the 2007 recipient of the Excellence in Teaching award, granted by the Center for Faculty Excellence at Ithaca College.
Recent Publications, Presentations and Creative Work
"Saint-Mamas, Strudel and the Single Man in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman," The Arthur Miller Journal (forthcoming, Spring 2015).
"'...then she came, and she cried. And I went back home with her': Arthur Miller's All My Sons and the Prison-House of Gender," The Arthur Miller Journal 8:2 (Fall 2013).
"Three Characters in Search of a Play: Faith Healer and the Quest for Final Form," New Hibernia Review, 13:1 (Spring/Earrach, 2009).
"'Parading daily in thuh Great Hole of History': Foraging for Selfhood in Suzan-Lori Parks' Two 'Lincoln' Plays." College Language Association convention, Cambridge, Maryland, March 2009.
"'I’ll see you yesterday’: Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, and the Captivating Past,” Concise Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Drama, ed. Mary Luckhurst (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing), 2008.
“Another look at those ‘three bollocks in a cell’: Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me and the Power of Play,” Irish Theater in America: Essays on Irish Theatrical Diaspora, ed. John Harrington (Syracuse UP), 2009; originally presented at the 3rd annual Irish Theatrical Diaspora Conference, Glucksman Ireland House, New York University, April, 2006.
"'In the dank margins of things': Whistling Psyche and the Illness of Empire," Out of History: Essays on the Writings of Sebastian Barry, ed. Christina Mahoney (Dublin: Carysfort Press and Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press of America, 2006).
Speech Acts: an original, two-act play produced by Theater Catalyst at the Adrienne Theatre in Philadelphia, May 24th-June 18th, 2004 (directed by Carol Laratonda).
"Reconstructing History in the Irish History Play," Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Irish Drama, ed. Shaun Richards (London: Cambridge University Press), 2004.