PPP: Current Students

Abimbola Adelakun

Abimbola Adelakun is a Ph.D. student and will be working on a dissertation that focuses on performance activism and how theatre influences the civic engagement of Nigerians in the socio-political arena. Abimbola currently holds an M.A. from the University of Ibadan, Communication and Language Arts where she specialized largely in Indigenous Communication and Expressive Communication. Her thesis was an analysis of how Nigerian newspapers use photos of emergency situations. She has been featured in many stage productions in and out of the University environment including Dead End, a stage play put up for eight weeks in Ibadan, Oyo to discourage illegal migration among Nigerian citizens, as well as Yemoja, The Concubine, and The Good Woman of Setzuan. She was part of the Abia state cultural troupe in her NYSC year and featured in many plays and television programs. Born and raised in Nigeria, Abimbola is a journalist and columnist with PUNCH, Nigeria-s most widely read newspaper. She is also an editor, a Media Consultant for cultural festivals, a contributor to many magazines and journals, and a novelist. Her debut book, Under the Brown Rusted Roofs, attracted many accolades. The second book is in the works and should be released before the end of 2011. In 2010, she won the ANA/Anyiam Osigwe prize for Literary Journalist of the year and has been shortlisted for several prizes.

Oladotun Ayobade

Oladotun Ayobade is a Ph.D. student researching audience behavior in Nigerian theatre and cinema, with particular attention to the impact of foreign cinema (including Hollywood and Bollywood) on the attitudes of Nigerian audiences towards theatre. Other research interests include transnational performance practices, theatre as agitational propaganda, and Nigerian theatre and cinema in the Diaspora. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Performing Arts from the University of Ilorin and an M.A. in Theatre Arts with focus on playwriting from the University of Lagos, both of which are in Nigeria. During his time as a student at the University of Lagos, Oladotun worked closely with Proessor Ahmed Yerima, one of Nigeria's most prolific playwrights. His thesis, titled “Esu and the Dynamics of Conflict in Ahmed Yerima's Yemoja and Aetu,” reflected this work. Although dance was Oladotun's major for his first degree, most of his practical time since graduation has been spent in directing, acting and playwriting. His plays include Iroko Trees Live Forever, A Man and a Plan, and Redeath, which are inspired by Nigerian culture/folklore and other contemporary social issues. He has also directed a stage adaptation of Wole Soyinka's poem, “Abiku,” a dance-theatre work, and “Nsibidi,” episodes of a poor theatre performance, and “Man and Wife,” among others. Oladotun recently tutored a group of amateur youths in theatre arts in acting, directing and playwriting.

Heather Barfield

Heather Barfield is a Ph.D. student who received her undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Austin in Anthropology with Honors. Before returning to UT for her doctorate work, she spent two years at New York University film school. For her Master's degree, she studied at NYU Performance Studies with Richard Schechner. Her thesis was a performance focusing on trauma, sexuality, self image, and AIDS with an accompanying paper describing the theory and research process for the performance. Among so many theatre passions, she is interested in experimental exchanges between spectators and performers through either staged performances and the development of original material that addresses sentiments peculiar to a community. She has been an active member of the Austin theatre scene for 15 years and continues to engage with the community as a critic for the Austin Chronicle and a practitioner at various venues in the city. She invests deeply in performance as public practice as a politically aware citizen of Austin arts and within the larger scholastic frame of theatre used as a potent form of expression. Can performance move beyond the scope of the housed arena when catharsis moves us into affective reaction? Fundamentally, she is most attracted to a central question: in an increasingly conflicted culture, what and how can theatre and performance teach us about ourselves and our world?

Scott Blackshire

Scott Blackshire is a Ph.D. student researching the journey of emerging artists from undergraduate and graduate programs into their post-baccalaureate creative community of choice. In addition, public education initiatives will be examined in order to capture maximum funding for emerging artists from private and community-based sources, foundations, individual patrons, and corporate underwriters. Utilizing experiences and perspectives from the performing, professional, and non-profit worlds will allow exploration of the identity of emerging artists. It will also enable the consideration of what might be done to better prepare all types of artists to fully engage in their artistic endeavors. In short, this research will facilitate the preparation of emerging artists to flourish in communities which are ready to welcome and support them. Scott earned his Bachelor of Music at Indiana University and Master of Music at Catholic University in Washington, DC - both in Opera Performance - and has performed with regional opera companies in the United States and in the UK. He has enjoyed premiering new operatic works, singing oratorio (including a PBS-televised Handel's “Messiah”), and presenting solo recitals across Ireland. While living in New York City and Austin, he has balanced performance with management and development work in the public non-profit, private foundation, and academic realms.

Cassidy Browning

Cassidy C Browning is is a Ph.D. student in PPP and the Graduate Portfolio program in the Center for Women's and Gender Studies. Browning is an activist theatre scholar, educator, and practitioner. In the spring of 2011, Browning was recognized by the Texas Exes with their Graduate Teaching Award for the College of Fine Arts. Browning was recently an Instructional Assistant Professor in Illinois State University's School of Theatre, and graduated in 2008 with an M.A. in Theatre History and Criticism and minor in Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Browning's undergraduate degree is a double major in Acting and Theatre History from Illinois State University. Research interests include Queer Theory and Theatre, Gender Studies, Performance Art, Feminism, Guerilla Theatre, Transgender Identities, Performance Studies, Racialized Studies, Humor, Camp, and Internet Identities, and practitioner interests and experience span performing, dramaturgy, costume design and construction, directing, writing, and stage management. Browning deposited a thesis in May 2008 titled, “A Room of Wong's Own: Identity Politics in the Life and Work of Kristina Wong” about a Los Angeles-based performance artist who became a figure of Third Wave Feminism after creating her infamous website. The tentative title for Browning's dissertation is, “Representations of Transgender-ness on Stage and Screen.”

Download Cassidy's Curriculum Vitae (pdf – download adobe reader.)

Brianna Figueroa

Brianna Figueroa is a M.F.A. student in PPP. Previously, she studied at the University of Wyoming where she received her B.F.A. in Dance Performance. Brianna is interested in examining how performance is used to propagate or relieve sociopolitical tensions within a given community. Her areas of concentration include the diasporic performance of the Latino/a community, cultural memory, folklore, religion, and feminist theory.

Denise Forbes-Erickson

Denise Forbes-Erickson is a Ph.D. student in PPP. She was born and raised in Jamaica, West Indies, and her dissertation focuses on sexuality in Caribbean design and performance, specializing in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century popular performance in British West Indian slave societies, as a lens to examine the controversies of homophobia, homoeroticism and hetero-eroticism in contemporary Caribbean visual culture, performance and its trans-nationality. She is currently completing a Doctoral Portfolio in African and African American Studies specializing in the African Diaspora in the Center for African and African American Studies (CAAAS). Denise holds an M.A. in Theatre from the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. She earned a B.A. (with Honors) in Theatre Design from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, in London, and a Diploma in Sculpture, specializing in welded steel sculptures, from the Edna Manley College of the Visual Arts and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica. She has presented scholarly papers at international conferences, including the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) Annual Conference in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil (2007), and the British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE) Annual Conference in Winchester, England (2006). She also presented scholarly papers at national conferences at the Africa 2007 Conference at the University of Texas at Austin (2007), and the Comparative Drama Conference (CDC), Los Angeles, California (2006). As an artist and theatre designer, Denise exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions, as well as theatre productions in the Caribbean, USA, Canada, the Czech Republic and England. She worked as a theatre designer for Theatre Centre Company in London, England in association with Mercury Theatre in Colchester, England, with British directors Rosalind Hutt and Adrian Stokes. Denise was also the set designer for the Little Theatre Movement (LTM) National Pantomime Company of Jamaica in Kingston, Jamaica, led by acclaimed Caribbean theatre practitioners and scholars, Barbara Gloudon and Rex Nettleford. Denise is currently designing for ProArts Collective in association with St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas. She is a member of the Society of British Theatre Designers (SBTD), the Jamaican Artists and Craftsmen Guild (JACG), the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), and the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA).

Download Denise's Curriculum Vitae (pdf – download adobe reader.)

Rachel Gilbert

Rachel Gilbert is a M.A. student in PPP. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Performance and History from Susquehanna University, located in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. Originally from Sykesville, Maryland, Rachel has previously worked both as a dramaturgy intern at the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival and an education intern and summer camp instructor at CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore. While at Susquehanna, Rachel was extremely active in both the Theatre and History Departments. She presented her paper “Thrills! Action! Punch!: An Analysis of the Relationship between Film Studios and the Douglass Theatre” at the 2010 Biennial Phi Alpha Theta Conference in San Diego, CA. Rachel's thesis, “To Be or To 'Boondoggle'? That is the Question: The Conflicts of Art, Relief, and Economics in the Federal Theatre Project,” will be published in the second annual volume of the SU Political Review. Within the Theatre Department, Rachel has been lucky enough to act, direct, stage manage, and dramaturg throughout her four years. Dramaturgy credits at Susquehanna include The Diary of Anne Frank, The Night of the Iguana, and Richard III. Some of Rachel's current research interests include original works of the Federal Theatre Project, Absurdist theatre, and children's theatre as political or social instruction.

Amy Guenther

Amy Guenther is a Ph.D. student in PPP. She graduated with a B.F.A. in Musical Theatre from Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina where she started cultivating an interest in women in theatre and collaborative theatre techniques. While there, she participated in the ten-month development of a play about women and machines using Anne Bogart's Viewpoints. She completed an M.A. in Theatre Studies at Miami University. Her thesis project involves the evolving script, Casa Cushman by Leigh Fondakowski of Tectonic Theater Project and is entitled, “What is or Can be the Record of an Actress, However Famous?: Historicizing Women Through Performance in Leigh Fondakowski's Casa Cushman.” Her experiences teaching an Introduction to Theatre class for non-majors at Miami prompted her to collaborate on a forum theatre play to specifically help female graduate assistant instructors negotiate potential problems in the college classroom. Her research interests include feminist theory, gender studies, queer theory, collaborative theatre, and cross-cultural theatre. These interests have taken her around the world to view theatre in Japan, Ireland, France, Estonia, and the Czech Republic.

Nicole Gurgel

Nicole Gurgel is an M.F.A. student in PPP. Her thesis project explores the ways in which generative autoethnographic performance practices can destabilize hegemonic whiteness. She holds a B.A. from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she majored in English and minored in Women's Studies. Nicole is an activist and performance practitioner, and has worked as a dramaturg, director, facilitator, and administrator in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Chennai, India, Roanoke, Virginia and Austin, Texas.

Christina Gutierrez

Christina Gutierrez is a Ph.D. student in PPP. Her Master's Degree in Theatre History is from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and her B.A. in English Language/Literature and Performance is from Whittier College in Los Angeles. Christina's dissertation research is on modern performances of medievalism, both on stage in plays that engage with medieval themes and motifs, and in spaces like Renaissance Fairs and the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas that allow for embodied and participatory experiences of the Middle Ages. She also works with modern productions of Shakespeare's history plays as medieval historiography. Her Master's thesis, “Staging God's Ply: Translating the York Mystery Plays for (Post)Modern Audiences,” examined two twentieth-century productions of a fourteenth-century play cycle. Christina is also a professional dramaturg, and works extensively with the Austin Shakespeare Festival and with Departmental productions. She has also freelanced both academically and professionally as a dramaturg with The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Rude Mechanicals, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, Scottish Rite's summer Shakespeare series, Fresh Baked Theatre Company, The University of Colorado at Boulder, and Whittier College. Christina is from Los Angeles, California.

Download Christina's Curriculum Vitae (pdf – download adobe reader.)

Carrie Kaplan

Carrie Kaplan is a Ph.D. student in the Performance as Public Practice Program. She holds a B.A. in English from Dartmouth College, an MSED in English and Secondary English Education from CUNY Queens College, and an M.A. in Performance as Public Practice. Her main scholarly interest is anti-theatricality, and she is currently working on a dissertation entitled “'Corruption is Our Only Hope^': Towards a Politic and Poetics of Corruption in the works of Naomi Wallace, Tony Kushner and Reza Abdoh.“ Through an examination and contextualization of three plays from the 1990s, this work explores the intersections between public policy and attitudes aimed at containing theatrical performance and spaces, and public policy and attitudes aimed at containing immigrants, women, non-white nationals and homosexuals in both the time period in which the plays were performed and within the fictional worlds they represent. Carrie has also worked extensively as a dramaturg with a focus on new play development. Her dramturgical manifesta “I'd Rather Shove a Bodkin in My Nowl or Wear A Bona Roba's Merkin Than be That Kind of Dramaturg“ was published by the LMDA Review. She has collaborated with M.F.A. playwrights at UT on several world premiere productions. Through internships and professional engagements, she has also served as a dramaturg at PCPA Theatrefest, Portland Stage Company, New Dramatists, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, and PlayPenn. Most recently, she served as a dramaturgical assistant for Katie Pearl and Lisa D'Amour's piece How to Build a Forest which premiered at The Kitchen in New York City in June of 2011.

Kristin Leahey

Kristin Leahey is a Ph.D. student in PPP. Some of her concentrations of study include Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities and dramaturgy. In the spring of 2005 she was the dramaturg for the University of Texas' production The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, a collaborative project with Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. She also performed in UT's 2005 the Cohen New Works Festival and with Austin's Second Youth Theatre. She earned a Master's Degree in Theatre with specializations in Child Drama and Performance at Northwestern University. Her Master's thesis, “Removing the Blindfold: An Anthology of Socially Challenging Theatre for Youth Plays,” is a dramaturgical examination of new plays that address social issues affecting young adult audiences. While in Chicago she worked as a dramaturg, teaching artist, and in outreach administration for the Goodman Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre, Child's Play Touring Company, Metropolis Centre for the Performing Arts, and Emerald City Children's Theatre. She is a graduate of Tufts University with majors in Drama and History.

Natashia Lindsey

Natashia Lindsey is a Ph.D. student in PPP. Her research includes the intersections of Whiteness and class, how Whiteness and "otherness" is performed, and Museum Theatre. She received her B.S. and M.A. in Pan-African Studies from the University of Louisville. While at the U of L she had the pleasure of working and performing with the African American Theatre Program in their Cross-Cultural Exchange in Beijing and Xiamen, China. She also spent three years performing with an all-woman choreopoetry group, Solidifying Her Evolution (S.H.E.!), where she used spoken word to challenge societal norms and push for empowerment.

She presented original research as an M.A. student at the National Council for Black Studies Conference. She has guest lectured at Xiamen University and the University of Louisville. She has performed in multiple venues as a poet and as an ally for African American historical, social and cultural issues.

Nicole Martin

Nicole Martin is a Ph.D. student in PPP. She received her B.S. in Public Relations from the University of Texas at Austin and completed her M.A. in Communication from Arizona State University with an emphasis in Rhetoric and Performance Studies. Her thesis project, “Michelle Obama: A Womanist/(Black) Feminist Auto/Biographical Analysis of Self-Identification,” examined Michelle Obama's employment of the moniker “Mom-in-Chief” and its effects on public perception of archetypical constructions of ideological womanhood, as portrayed by the First Lady, against the continued stereotypical devaluation of black American women. This project interrogated intersections of race, class, and gender, provided historical contextualization for these discourses, and infused personal narrative to challenge audience conceptions of who and what black women should be in order for the public to understand them.

Nicole's current research interests focus on girlhood and princess culture as they inform black female subjectivity and racial melancholia, as well as scholarship that investigates popular culture, feminist discourse, and cultural memory.

Marcus Mcquirter

Lydia Nelson

Lydia Nelson is a Ph.D. student in PPP. She is from Massachusetts and has a B.A. in History and Creative Writing from Western Kentucky University and an M.A. in Communication (focusing on Rhetoric and Performance Studies) from Arizona State University. She has been involved in theatre, art, forensics, and community work since childhood, and is especially committed to making history accessible to the public through performance. Her research begins from the assumption that history acts as epistemology; thus far, her work is grounded in queer, feminist, and public sphere theories as well as bricolage and Verfremdungseffekt. She examines the performative legacies of the absence/presence of archives and public memory as well as the ways in which citizenship is discursively and materially constructed and performed. Past research and performance projects include work on HPV discourse, slaughterhouses, and the 19th century bicycle craze. Her thesis, “(They Say You're) Nothing But a Womanizer, Woman-Womanizer: Sensemaking, Uptake, and Citizenship in the Public Passing of Murray Hall,” examined the posthumous narration, claiming, and sense-making of the life of a Tammany Hall politician and passing woman. This project also culminated in a solo performance including a self-made film and first attempt at stop motion animation.

Chuyun Oh

Chuyun Oh is a Ph.D. student in PPP. She was born in Korea and started training in dance at an early age and majored Dance and Philosophy at Ewha Woman's University. Her thesis at Ewha was about dancing in television commercials, and focused on gender representation.

She considers dance and art mirrors to understanding herself, others, and the societies we create. Learning compels her to ask who she is and who we are. For her, that is a fundamental driving force to study. Her research interests range from dance, philosophy, aesthetics, and criticism to interdisciplinary art and cultural studies. She has worked as a dancer, choreographer, critic, and publisher integrating practice and theory in all of her work. She is currently interested in Performance Studies focusing on daily life events, entertainment shows, and mass media.

Eleanor Owicki

Eleanor Owicki is a Ph.D. student in PPP . Her primary focus is Irish theatre, particularly the performances of sectarian, sexual, and gender identities in the context of the Northern Irish Troubles and their aftermath. She received an M.A. in PPP in the spring of 2008 with a thesis titled, “Our Day Will Come?: Female and Catholic Identities in Northern Irish Theatre.” She holds a B.A. from New York University, where she double majored in History and Theatre History. Before coming to UT, Eleanor spent a year as an intern in the Education and Dramaturgy Departments of TheatreWorks, a regional theatre in the San Francisco Bay Area. While there, she was the dramaturg for Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosensweig. Eleanor has also worked as a dramaturg on several productions at UT , including Big Love, Still Life with Iris, The Idiot, and The Threepenny Opera.

Alexandro Ramirez

Alexandro (Rudy) Ramirez is a Ph.D. student in the PPP. He is a writer, director and performer based in Austin, TX, specializing in the creation of new solo and collaborative work. He has created two full-length autobiographical performance pieces, Promised Land: A Radical Queer Revival (2009) and Footnotes for People Who Don't Speak Spanish (2011, performed with Beliza Torres Narváez), and has performed solo pieces with Spike Gillespie's The Dick Monologues (2007-2009) and You're What's Wrong with America (2011), as well as at numerous venues around Austin. He is the performance director for The Austin Bike Zoo, with whom he has created Wheels of Wonderland (2009) and An Oddity Odyssey (2010). He is a member of The Vortex Repertory Company, with whom he has directed Lear (2011) and The Physicists (Summer Youth Company, 2011), as well as originating roles in The Secret Lives of the InBetweeners (2009) and Sarah Silver Hands (2011). Additional directing credits include The History of the Garden (2003) and Getting Off: Stories of Sexuality and Consent (2004), created with the Rhizome Collective, The Emma Goldman Project (2007), created for Radical Encuentro, Luna Tart Died (2008, co-written with Laura Freeman), The 999 Eyes Freak Show (2008 touring season), Spit (Frontera Fest Short Fringe Wild Card Selection, 2010), and short and full-length productions of Trey Deason's Cardigan, (Frontera Fest Short Fringe Best of Week 2010, Long Fringe 2011). Additional acting credits include Food/No Food ([humdrum collective], 2007), Fernando and the Killer Queen (2009) and Re: Psyche (2010).

Roén Salinas

Beliza Torres Narváez

Beliza Torres Narváez Ramirez is a Ph.D. student in PPP. She is a performer, dancer and artist educator. Beliza studied Spanish Studies and Drama at the University of Puerto Rico and has an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University.

Before coming to UT, she worked as Theatre Instructor at the University of Puerto Rico. While there, she supervised students majoring in theatre and some of the courses she taught included Corporal Expression, Dramatic Activities for Teachers, and Theatre as an Experience.

Katelyn Wood

Katelyn Wood is a Ph.D. student in PPP. She received her B.A. from Illinois State University in Communication Studies and Gender Studies and has an M.A. from Rhetoric and Language at UT. Her thesis examined the integration of humor and comedic performances into Black feminist rhetoric. Since moving to Austin, she has coached UT's speech and debate team and worked with the Living Newspaper Project. Her research interests include humor as a rhetorical act, the construction and performance of public memory, performance ethnography, and feminist and queer performance history.