Theatre History, Theory, and Literature, Dramaturgy
sarafree@uoregon.edu
541-346-1998
209 Villard Hall
Courses:
Advanced Script Analysis; Theatre History I and III; Dramaturgy; Sources and Adaptations: Theatre, Theory, and Translation; Alternatives and Archives; literature seminars on rotating topics.
“Complex pleasure…that’s my watchword for theatre and for education.
Complexity, yes: difficulty, nuance, struggle, and working-through. I try to push my students.
But always pleasure: pleasure in the word, pleasure in the body, pleasure in the text, pleasure in the performance, pleasure in the watching, pleasure in the doing, pleasure of the familiar, and pleasure of the unfamiliar. I love it when we enjoy ourselves in class and in the theatre.”
Research Interests:
Theatre history and historiography; alternative British theatre companies; contemporary British playwrights; Black British playwrights; Feminist theatre/theory (American and British); translation theory and postcolonial translation; dramaturgy and pedagogy; the theatre and theory of Bertolt Brecht; Francophone theatre and postcolonial theory.
Awards and Accomplishments:
Gerald Kahan Award for best essay in theatre studies by a younger scholar, American Society of Theatre Research, 2007.
Publications:
Book:
International Dramaturgy: Translation and Transformations in the Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2008.
Coedited with Maya Roth and contributed:
“Group Tragedy and Diaspora: New and Old Histories of Family and Exile in Timberlake Wertkenbaker’s Hecuba and Credible Witness.”
“A Nightingale on the Nile: An Interview with Dalia Basiouny” “Afterword: The Translatorial Consciousness”
Book Chapters :
“The Immigrant, the Exile, and the Refugee in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Credible Witness: A Poetics of Diaspora.” Querying Difference in Theatre History. Eds. Scott Magelssen and Ann Haugo. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007.
Articles:
“Toward a Genealogy and Taxonomy of British Alternative Theatre.” New Theatre Quarterly XXII.4 (November 2006): 364-378.
“Writing the History of Alternative Theatre Companies: Mythology and the Last Years of Joint Stock.” Theatre Survey 47.1 (May 2006): 51-72.
“Adaptation After Darwin: Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Evolving Texts.” Modern Drama 45.4 (Winter 2002): 646-662.
“Theory and Philosophy Roundtable: Boundaries, Definitions, Provocations.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism16.1 (Fall 2001): 133-135.
“‘Each in our open-ended way, we are multitudinous’ — Les Nombres by Andrée Chedid.” Theatre Research International 23.3 (Autumn 1998): 249-255.
Arts Criticism: Weekly arts reviews and features for The Isthmus, the alternative newspaper of Madison, WI, 1997-2001.
Occasional contributions on theatre in the northwest to The Columbia River Reader, published Longview, WA. 2008 —
Recent Production Credits:
Dramaturg for the University Theatre co-production of Wild Oats with the Willamette Repertory Theatre, 2007; for Measure for Measure at Illinois Wesleyan University, 2005; for Struggling Truths at Prop Thtr in Chicago, 2004.
Director at Illinois Wesleyan University: John and Jen: A Musical, 2007; Alison’s House, 2007; Melancholy Play, 2006; Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde, 2005; A Bold Stroke for a Wife, 2005, Our Country’s Good, 2003.
Actor: Anne in The Speed of Darkness by Steve Tesich at Heartland Theatre Company, Normal, IL, 2006.