Monsters in Performance (PDF)

Michael M. Chemers is Professor and Chair of the Department of Performance, Play & Design at the University of California Santa Cruz. He was the Founding Director of the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Production Dramaturgy Program at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama from 2007-2012. He is the author of more than 70 peer-reviewed pieces (including seven books) on theater history, theory, adaptation, and dramaturgy. Most relevant to this project, he is the author of Staging Stigma: A Critical Examination of the American Freak Show (Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), The Monster in Theatre History: This Thing of Darkness (Routledge, 2017), served as editor for a double issue of Disability Studies Quarterly on freak shows, and edited Alexander Iliev's Towards a Theory of Mime (Routledge, 2014) and Luis Valdez's Theatre of the Sphere: The Vibrant Being (Routledge, 2021). He is also the author of Ghost Light: An Introductory Handbook for Dramaturgy (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010) and has articles appear in Modern Drama, New England Theatre Journal, Comparative Drama, Theatre Topics, LMDA Review, and other publications. Recent book chapters include "The Mortification of Harvey Leach."

Analola Santana is Associate Professor in the Department of Theater at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Teatro y Cultura de Masas: Encuentros y Debates (México: Editorial Escenología, 2010) and Freak Performances: Dissidence in Latin American Theatre (University of Michigan Press, 2018), which considers the significance of theatrical practices that use the "freak" as a medium to explore the continuing effects of colonialism on Latin American identity. She is also the co-editor of Theatre and Cartographies of Power: Repositioning the Latina/o Americas (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018) and Fifty Key Figures in Latinx and Latin American Theatre (Routledge, 2022). She has published articles in several journals, including GESTOS,