HowlRound just published an article I wrote about Die Name Wat Ons Gee - the piece of puppet theatre I helped make last year as part of the the Barrydale Reconciliation Day Puppet Parade in South Africa. You can find it here.
Interview on KALX 90.7 FM's "The Graduates"
My friends and collaborators Martha Herrera-Lasso and Kimberly Richards and I were recently interviewed on KALX's show "The Graduates" about our work in Performance Studies and the New Play Reading Series. The interview (dated 1.19.16) is available to stream or download on iTunes here.
"Rhinoceros" Graphic Design Honored
Leila Singleton, the graphic designer behind the posters for my production of Rhinoceros and the other 2014-2015 TDPS mainstage shows, has won an award from Graphic Design USA for that body of work. Congratulations, Leila! You can check out the award-winning designs here.
Barrydale Puppet Parade
I am absolutely thrilled to join the directing team of the Barrydale Puppet Parade, which brings artists from South Africa's world-renowned Handspring Puppet Company and their community partners together on a one-of-a-kind site-specific puppet pageant. This year's piece, Die Name Wat Ons Gee, explores the legacy of slavery in the Eastern Cape and will be performed on December 13.
"Not Here" in Hippocampus Magazine's October 2015 Issue
"Not Here," a personal essay I wrote about the death of a dear friend of mine in Kenya, has just been published in Hippocampus Magazine's October issue. You can access it online here.
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.