Review Article on Animals and Performance in Theatre Survey

I reviewed two recent books on animals and performance - Lourdes Orozco's Theatre & Animals and Una Chaudhuri and Holly Hughes' edited volume Animal Acts: Performing Species Today - for Theatre Survey 56.3 (September 2015). If you don't have access to the complete issue of the journal (which is of course worth reading in its entirety) you can access a PDF of my article on my academia.edu page here.

Animal Futures Working Group Seminar Series

I am thrilled to announce that this year I am convening a Critical Theory Working Group here at U.C. Berkeley on the subject of "Animal Futures." Working Group meetings will take the form of seminars - 6 over the course of the year - led by the likes of Mel Chen, Donna Jones, Tobias Menely, Charis Thompson, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson and Alexander Weheliye. The inaugural session - in which I'll present my work on "New Naturalisms" - is on September 24th. For more information, visit the Program in Critical Theory's website.

The Lions and the Hunters

I'm pleased to announce that Africa is a Country is running "The Lions and the Hunters," an essay I wrote on Cecil the Lion and the Black Lives Matter movement. Read it here, and please share!

Upcoming Conference Presentations

I've been honored to have been accepted recently into a number of exciting conferences. More details are forthcoming, but I can say that in Summer and Fall 2015 I will be speaking at the African Theatre Association, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the African Studies Association, the U.C. Berkeley Program in Critical Theory's "Animal Futures" Working Group, the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, the American Society for Theater Research and the Modern Languages Association. I couldn't be happier at the prospect of sharing my work with extraordinary mentors and colleagues at each of those gatherings.

THE BONAPARTES at ANT Fest on 6/13

The Bonapartes, my play-in-progress, will be featured at Ars Nova's ANT Fest on 6/13. I am humbled and honored to get to work with my long-time friend and collaborator Whitney Mosery on what will be her New York directing debut (!) as well as a talented ensemble of actors and designers on this new project. If you're in New York in June, be sure to check it out! For more details, see my Event page and visit out the ANT Fest website.

PAN-AMERICAN REJECTS on 5/6

I am very happy to announce that two pieces I wrote and two pieces my dear friend and collaborator Takeo Rivera wrote will be featured in "Pan-American Rejects," an afternoon of readings of rejected plays that will take place on Wednesday May 6 at 4PM in Zellerbach Room 7 on the Berkeley campus. What better way to celebrate the ups-and-downs of a life in the theater than by throwing a party for all our passed-over work? For more, see the Contemporary Drama Working Group website.

Essay in Johannesburg Salon 8

I was honored to have my essay "'Our' 'Common' 'Humanity,'" which explores the non- and post-human futures of anti-racism and non-racialism, included in Achille Mbembe's Johannesburg Salon Vol. 8, guest edited by SA Smythe. Special thanks to Achille and to Leigh-Ann Naidoo, along with a lovely crowd of others, for organizing the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism conference last summer from which the Salon emerged. Check it out here.

CDWG Spring 2015 Season

The Contemporary Drama Working Group has embarked on its Spring 2015 season. I will direct for two of the evenings: the 2/11 Christopher Chen reading and the 4/23 Planet Earth New Play Festival at U.C. Berkeley readings. Please visit the CDWG website for more information and please do come if you can!

CDWG YouTube Channel

The Contemporary Drama Working Group has launched its own YouTube channel. Subscribe for brave and insightful Q&As with our visiting playwrights, who we think are the future of the American theatre. Check it out here.