Winter 2025
Congratulations to Payne Banister for finishing coursework in the fall!
Congratulations to Alison Mahoney for successfully defending their comprehensive exam and dissertation prospectus!
Payne Banister published their article, “Masquerading Resistance: The Parasitic Tactics of the Mandrake Ball” in the Spring 2024 issue of the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism.
Jeremy Kahn presented a workshop called Believe in the Ball at KCACTF’s January 2025 conference in Pittsburgh. Informed by Viola Spolin’s Object Work, this progression of exercises provided an opportunity for students to invest in the properties of imagined material items, exploring their sensory and emotional relationship with the objects. Where Spolin’s exercises are often offered as individual, bite-sized games, this workshop blended one exercise into the next, aiming to engage students through an uninterrupted suspension of disbelief throughout the session.
Elizabeth Kurtzman published her chapter "Blood, Sweat, and Fears: The Values of Work and Community in the Haunting Profession" in The Figure of the Monster in Global Theatre: Further Readings on the Aesthetics of Disqualification. In November 2024, she presented her paper "They Come from Another World: Alien Invasion Narratives and Nature’s Fight Against Invasive Species" at ASTR’s annual conference in Seattle. Liz also served on the organizing committee for Pitt's Horror Studies Working Group's first inaugural Queer Horror Conference, which occurred from February 7-8. Liz received a Provost Dissertation Completion Fellowship in support of completing her dissertation this summer.
Victoria LaFave curated an exhibit in Hillman Library this past summer. The exhibit, “Consuming Divas: Legacies of Fan Culture in American Theatre,” evolved from her GSA position with Archives and Special Collections in 2023-2024 and her longtime fascination with diva worship across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The materials on display from the Curtis Theatre Collection – such as collectable cigarette pins, fan-made scrapbooks, sheet music, and even silver spoons – demonstrate how fans have continually wanted a piece of their favorite performer. Featuring a few of America’s previous “It Girls” like Lillian Russell, Julien Eltinge, and Mae West, the materials offer a glimpse into the relationship between popular entertainment and the home. This exhibit was on display in the Archives and Special Collections Gallery on the 3rd floor of Hillman Library until January 2025. At the November 2024 ASTR conference in Seattle, Victoria presented her paper “Queer Americana and Ecological Anxieties” as part of the Ecologies of Queer Legacy: Mapping Time and Change working group. She also received a Provost Dissertation Completion Fellowship in support of completing her dissertation this summer.
Alison Mahoney published their article, “‘Severe’ Sensory Theatre: Building Relational Disability Politics during UK COVID Lockdowns” in the 2024 issue of Theatre Research International. She also will be teaching Contemporary Global Stages: Disability and Performance Global Stages this summer and returning to work as a project manager and facilitator for Evolve Coaching’s Future Camp in August.
Frederick Miller is excited to be teaching Beyond Broadway: Musical Theatre Across the Globe as part of the Contemporary Global Stages course sequence this spring! In January, Frederick presented his paper, “Further Fracturing Fairy Tales: Reworking Shrek for the Road,” as part of the Music Theatre Dance Association Winter Symposium. Additionally, he shared a presentation, “Back to High School: Reflections on The High School Musical Podcast,” during the 2025 Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) Digital Conference.
Audrey Pernell was awarded TC²: True Co-equal x Transformative Collaborations funding for her project “Recentering Blackness in Spirituals and African Art Music” with Seyi Ajibade, a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology. She also presented a workshop entitled “Decolonizing Vocal Pedagogy” at KCACTF’s January 2025 conference in Pittsburgh.
Summer 2024
Karim Chebli defended his MFA thesis, “An Ethnotheatrical Approach to Teaching the History of the Lebanese War,” and graduated in Spring 2024. Hansel Tan defended his MFA thesis, “The Art of Transformation: Performance Pedagogy, Embodied Cognition, and Metamorphosis as Method” and graduated in Summer 2024. This fall, Karim will be a lecturer at the University of Virginia and Hansel will be an Assistant Professor at Villanova University.
New Students
Jeremy Kahn is an actor who has worked extensively in theater, on-camera, and in performance capture for video games. Beyond his acting career, Jeremy uses performance methods to coach medical professionals in communication skills. Inspired by his work in healthcare, Jeremy’s research interests center around the pedagogy of applied performance, with the aim of broadening work opportunities and societal impact for actors. Jeremy and his partner Emily are relocating to Pittsburgh from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Audrey Pernell is a performer and certified Roy Hart Centre voice teacher specializing in free improvisation, devised physical theatre and theatrical concerts. Her in-depth research into the voice, bodywork, and performance has taken her from the United States to France, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Poland, and Chile, where for the last 12 years she has taught and performed in numerous Chilean universities and professional institutions, as well as codirected Rumbos Voice Studio in Santiago alongside her husband, Andrés Zará. In recent years Audrey has taught both voice and acting at Swarthmore College, as well as voice at Pig Iron School's MFA program, where she also serves in their Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion working group. Sought after for her unique balance of intuitive creativity with concrete and accessible tools, her teaching resonates for diverse professionals from performing artists to teachers to therapists.
Mohammad Karambeigi is an Iranian scholar, performance maker, dramaturg, and playwright. He earned his BA in Acting-Directing from the University of Tehran and is now starting his MA/PhD program at the University of Pittsburgh. Mohammad also serves as a researcher with one of the most important Iranian alternative theater groups, “Iran Saye Theater,” which has performed its theatrical projects at several prestigious festivals, such as Off-Avignon and the Adelaide Theater Festival.
Mohammad’s research bridges various academic disciplines, including Performance Studies, Political Philosophy, Middle Eastern Studies, and Urban Studies, to enrich his exploration of artistic and civic performances in the MENA region and their impact on the sociopolitical and sociocultural spheres of MENA societies.
Being Laya Shahzamani is associated with her background as a young Iranian woman and it has shaped her way. She has studied art for almost 13 years but now she considers herself a scholar rather than an artist. While she is dealing with questions in various fields of study and would love to give them a shot, her main interest is gender evolution in Iranian post-revolutionary drama and the new generation of theater scholars and playwrights of which she is a part. Thus, this is a good chance for her to be a part of her own analysis!
Continuing Students
Payne Banister traveled to St. Louis, where they reviewed the St. Louis Lesbian and Gay Collection at the State Historical Society of Missouri. While in St. Louis, Payne visited now-closed bathhouses and cruising spots mentioned in local historical accounts of LGBT histories. In August, they presented their paper “Cruising Toward a Fat/Crip/Queer Phenomenology in the Bathhouse Stairwell” as part of the ATHE Performance Focus Group’s Emerging Scholars Panel. They also are excited to share that they are awaiting proofs for their article “Masquerading Resistance: The Parasitic Tactics of the Mandrake Ball,” which will be published in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism’s special edition on drag and the law.
Tash Cole presented her paper “Cripping Disability Aesthetics: Butoh and the Disabled Body” at the Emerging Scholars Panel hosted by the Performance Studies Focus Group at the ATHE Conference in Atlanta this August.
Liz Kurtzman won the ATDS Graduate Student Research Award for their dissertation work this summer. She also attended the Jarman Lab Film Bootcamp in May and worked as an archival assistant this summer in Pitt's Archives and Special Collections, processing the Marilyn Horne collection.
Alison Mahoney presented a paper at PSi in London entitled, “Midget Village on Strike: Collective Action at the Chicago Century of Progress International Exposition.” They conducted interviews and performance observations in London for two dissertation chapters with Drag Syndrome and sensory performance artists Rhiannon Armstrong and Frozen Light Theatre (funded by the International Studies Fund, two grants from the European Studies Center, and a Nationality Room Scholarship from the Women’s International Club). Alison also conducted archival research at the London Metropolitan Archives and National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA) in London. She facilitated the creation of a collaborative immersive theatre project (“Arcade Anarchy”) at Evolve Coaching’s Future Camp, a summer arts camp for neurodiverse teens and young adults in Pittsburgh. They also accepted a position as Accessibility Coordinator for Sensorium Ex, a world-premiere opera composed by Paola Prestini (Co-Founder & Artistic Director, National Sawdust) with a creative team and cast of many disabled artists which will creatively incorporate accessibility throughout the production. Sensorium Ex will premiere in Omaha at the Common Senses Festival in May 2025.
This summer, Frederick Miller received a Summer Immersive Fellowship from Humanities Engage to develop The High School Musical Podcast, a new musical theatre podcast dedicated to “drive-by” dramaturgy geared towards high school-aged students. Frederick also presented his paper “It’s a Scandal! It’s an Outrage: Disrupting Nostalgia in Daniel Fish’s revived Oklahoma! (2019)” at the 2024 ATHE conference in Atlanta, GA, as part of the Bruce Kirle Memorial Debut Panel. His paper will be expanded for publication later this winter with MusicTheatreDance, the official journal of the Music Theatre Dance Association.
Guilherme Meletti Yazbek, supported by the Dietrich A&S Summer Fellowship, the Field Research Grant from the Center for Latin American Studies, and the International Studies Fund, conducted the research project Queer Choreopolitics in Downtown São Paulo, in Brazil. The study explored the vibrant relationship between the queer community and key public spaces in São Paulo’s city center, revealing how these areas serve as stages for unique social interactions and choreographies. The researcher conducted an ethnography of the goers of Parque Augusta, which was inaugurated in November 2021 and has been intensely frequented by the queer community since its opening. Additionally, through autoethnographic experiences, he mapped gay spaces where social choreographies are primarily associated with sex, such as saunas, porn cinemas, and cruising bars.
In addition to this research project, Guilherme, with the support of the Careers Beyond Academia Fellowship of the Theatre Arts department, conducted a summer partnership in Brazil with Rainbow Serpent, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit organization and collective of artists committed to advancing Black LGBTQ culture. With the aim of building bridges between this mission and Brazil, Guilherme mapped and contacted dozens of artists and curators whose work resonates with the goals of Rainbow Serpent.