Lynne Conner
Associate Professor
Department of Theatre Arts
Lynne Conner is a theatre and dance historian, playwright and arts consultant. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches courses in theatre and dance history and dramatic literature.
Her publications include the books Pittsburgh in Stages: Two Hundred Years of Theater (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007) Spreading the Gospel of the Modern Dance: Newspaper Dance Criticism in the United States, 1850-1935 (University of Pittsburgh Press), and In the Garden of Live Flowers, co-authored with Attilio Favorini (Dramatic Publishing Company), as well as chapters and articles in the Engaging Art: The Next Great Transformation of America’s Cultural Life, co-edited by Steven Tepper and William Ivey (Routledge), Crucibles of Crisis (University of Michigan Press), Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, The International Dictionary of Modern Dance, Metamorphosis, High Performance, Theatre Studies, Grantmakers in the Arts Reader, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Magazine, the Pittsburgh Press and other journals.
Her current research interests are focused on studying the history of audience behavior and psychology in order to design more effective audience enrichment programming for today’s cultural consumers. As the principal investigator for The Heinz Endowments Arts and Culture Program Arts Experience Initiative, she has been invited to lecture on the topic for the National Performing Arts Convention, Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Boston Foundation’s Public Forum, the International Society for the Performing Arts, Southwest Arts Conference, Grantmakers in the Arts, Dance USA, the American Symphony Orchestra League, the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University. She was recently selected as a Salzburg Seminar Fellow for “Cultural Institutions Without Walls: New Models of Arts-Community Interaction” and in October 2007 joined an international group of artists, cultural managers, and public sector representatives to identify particularly imaginative and effective new models of arts and community interaction. Dr. Conner is an award-winning playwright (including the 2002 Kennedy Center/ATHE David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award and a Jane Chambers 2002 Honorable Mention Award) whose plays have been produced by Mainstreet Theatre in Houston, Theatre-Hikes in Chicago, The Actors Guild of Lexington, William and Mary College, Slippery Rock University, Smith College, The Pittsburgh Playhouse, The University of Pittsburgh Repertory Theatre, the Three Rivers Arts Festival, Quantum Theatre, Prime Stage, Gemini Theatre, The Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival Young Company, among others. As the resident playwright for Carnegie Mellon University’s Interactive Theatre Company, she has written a dozen short plays on workplace issues and has been honored with a Pennsylvania Economy League Learning and Development Award.
Books
Read about Dr. Conner's latest book, Pittsburgh in Stages.