Research
My dissertation, Ototheatre: Learning to Listen and Perform in Sonically Augmented Spaces, explores new modes of audience experience that are made possible through portable audio devices such as iPods and smartphones. These devices allow artists to combine mobility, user agency, and portable technology to produce individual and intimate theatrical experiences. This genre, that I call “ototheatre,” is an emergent artistic form that sits at a convergence of contemporary technologies and social consumption habits. I have identified a collection of case studies, ranging from smartphone applications to new theatrical works incorporating novel uses of sound technology, that reveal the characteristics and antecedents of this form of theatre, and I explore the mechanisms by which these works create interactive theatrical experiences that extend modes of audience experience. My research connects the fields of sounds studies to theatre studies, and outlines ways that theatre can engage audiences in individual, embodied, and interactive ways through sound-based technologies.
I recently published an article based on my dissertation work on ototheatre in Performance Research.
I have two forthcoming book chapters on telephone performance. One chapter, in a book on COVID theatre, focuses on a fan community surrounding a telephone performance called The Telelibrary. The second chapter in a book on immersive performance, articulates how the telephone works to immerse isolated audiences through time and attention.
I am working on an ongoing project that explores ways that college instructors can utilize theatre training and scholarship in non-theatre classrooms. This project currently has three parts:
In the summer of 2022, I worked with an undergraduate researcher as part of the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) on a project titled, "Adapting UX Research Methods for Theatre Audiences." My SURP collaborator and I conducted research on UX methods and interviewed digital theatre artists to develop a protocol for researching audience experiences in digital and participatory performances. This work was presented at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) conference in July 2022.
My next research project focuses on audio description for theatre performance.
I recently published an article based on my dissertation work on ototheatre in Performance Research.
I have two forthcoming book chapters on telephone performance. One chapter, in a book on COVID theatre, focuses on a fan community surrounding a telephone performance called The Telelibrary. The second chapter in a book on immersive performance, articulates how the telephone works to immerse isolated audiences through time and attention.
I am working on an ongoing project that explores ways that college instructors can utilize theatre training and scholarship in non-theatre classrooms. This project currently has three parts:
- "Dramaturging the Mathematical Mystic." The early stages of this work were presented at the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) conference in November 2019. The final study will be based on a new theatre/math course - co-taught by a theatre scholar and mathematician.
- "Embody a Scholar." This study explores the impact of an assignment in which first-year-writing students present a scholar's work as their own, embodying the role of a scholar. The early stages of this work were presented at the Bucknall Teaching Conference in 2018.
- "Student-Written: Building Community through Performance and Performance Reviews.” This paper will examine the impact of student-written reviews on a student's feeling of belonging at the university. The student-written reviews will be written on student-written plays and will be posted in an online public space. I will explore the dual impact on the student playwrights and the student reviewers, both of whom are participating in acts of generosity to the university community through writing.
In the summer of 2022, I worked with an undergraduate researcher as part of the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) on a project titled, "Adapting UX Research Methods for Theatre Audiences." My SURP collaborator and I conducted research on UX methods and interviewed digital theatre artists to develop a protocol for researching audience experiences in digital and participatory performances. This work was presented at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) conference in July 2022.
My next research project focuses on audio description for theatre performance.