University of St. Thomas

Academic History

Expertise/Specialties

Contemporary British Drama and Theatre
Early American Drama and Theatre
Political Theatre and Theatre for Social Change
Feminist Theatre

Selected Publications
Books
Political Theatre in Post-Thatcher Britain: New Writing: 1995-2005. Houndmills; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Plays by Early American Women, 1775-1850. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.

The Plays of Caryl Churchill: Theatre of Empowerment. London: The Macmillan Press, and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991.

Journal Articles
“Warning Cries and Thatcher’s Children.” Contemporary Dramatic Revisions of Myth, Fairy Tale, and Legend, ed. Verna Foster. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, forthcoming.

“Antebellum Plays by Women: Contexts and Themes” (Chapter 7), Oxford Handbook of American Drama, ed. Jeffrey H. Richards. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
 
“America as Rogue State: Caryl Churchill’s Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?" Political and Protest Theatre Since 9/11: Patriotic Dissent, ed. Jenny Spencer. New York: Routledge, 2012: 53-62.
 
“The Absence of Wealth: Loss in Recent British Plays about Business.” To Have and Have Not: New Essays on Commerce and Capital in Modernist Theatre, ed. James Fisher. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011: 244-256.
 
"Revolution and After: Heroism and Violence in Early National Plays about the American Revolution," Violence in American Drama: Essays on Its Staging, Meanings and Effects, ed. Alfonso Ceballos Munoz, Ramon Espejo Romero, and Bernardo Munoz Martinez. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011: 15-27.

“Enough! Women Playwrights Confront the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Theatre Journal 62 (Dec., 2010) 611-626.

“Performance, Theater, and Culture in the Colonial Americas and Early United States.” Review Essay. William and Mary Quarterly, April, 2007: 436-440.

“Two Views of Venality in Thatcher’s Britain: Serious Money by Caryl Churchill and A Small Family Business by Alan Ayckbourn, Reading: A Biannual Journal of English Studies 1.2 (October, 2003) 11-21.

“Mary Carr Clarke’s Dramas of Working Women, 1815-1833.” The Journal of American Drama and Theatre 9.3 (Fall, 1997) 24-39.

"Playing with Republican Motherhood: Self-Representation in Plays by Susanna Rowson and Judith Sargent Murray."  Early American Literature 31.2 (1996) 150-166. Republished by Questia Media.

Book Chapters
“Travelers, Voyagers, Adventurers: Young Women in Early 19th-Century Plays by American Women.” Masculinities, Femininities, and the Power of the Hybrid in U.S. Narratives: Essays on Gender Borders, ed. Nieves Pascual, Laura Alonso-Gallo, and Francisco Collado-Rodriguez. Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag Winter, 2007.

“Ethnicity and Style in Productions at the Royal Court Theatre, 1956-1966,” Ethnicity and Identity: Global Performance, ed. Ravi Chaturvedi and Brian Singleton. Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2005: 195-2005.

“Margaret Fuller and the Theatre,” Women’s Contribution to Nineteenth-Century American Theatre. Valencia: University of Valencia Press, 2004: 71-84.

“Political Currents in Caryl Churchill’s Plays at the Turn of the Millennium,” Crucible of Cultures: Anglophone Drama at the Turn of the Millenium. Brussels; New York: Peter Lang, 2002: 57-67.

“Pursuits of Happiness: Comedies by Early American Women.” Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights, ed. Brenda Murphy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999: 3-18.

"Systemic Poisons in Churchill's Recent Plays." Essays on Caryl Churchill: Contemporary Representations, ed. Sheila Rabillard. Winnipeg: Blizzard Press, 1998: 159-173.

Selected Presentations
“Censorship and Religion in Contemporary Theatre.” International Federation for Theatre Research, Lisboa, July, 2009.

“Violence and National Identity in Post-Revolutionary American Plays.” III International Conference on American Theatre and Drama, Cadiz, May, 2009.

“The Politics of Happiness in American Plays of the Early National Period.” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Richmond, March, 2009.

“Identities and Implications in Out of Joint’s Macbeth.” International Federation for Theatre Research, Helsinki, August, 2006.

“Travelers, Voyagers, Adventurers: Young Women in Plays by Early American Women.” Spanish Association for American Studies (SAAS) Biennial Conference, Jaen, Spain, March, 2005.

“Ethnicity and Style in Productions at the Royal Court Theater, 1956-1966.” International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) Annual Conference, Jaipur, India, January, 2003.

“Political Currents in Recent Plays by Caryl Churchill,” Anglophone Drama at the Turn of the Millennium Conference, University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium, May, 2001.

“From Actress to Spectator: Eliza Haywood,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Milwaukee, 1999.

“Irish-Americans in Early Working-Class Dramas,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1998.

"Self-Representation in Collaboration: Louisa Medina’s Dramatic Adaptation of Ernest Maltravers." Association for Theatre in Higher Education, New York, 1996.

"'So Gross a Violation of Propriety and Public Decency': Sarah Maria Cornell at the Richmond Hill Theatre, 1833."  American Society for Theatre Research, St. Louis, 1995.

"Uses of History in Plays by Early American Women."  American Theatre and Drama Society special session, "History in Drama, Drama in History," Modern Language Association, San Diego, 1995.