Theater at Washington and Lee

Assistant Professor of Theatre
Ph.D., New York University

Telephone: (540) 458-8004
Fax: (540) 458-8041
E-mail: jewk@wlu.edu
Office: Rm. 308, Lenfest Center

I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being. This supremacy of the theater derives from the fact that it is always 'now' on the stage. 

                                                                                                                                                              -Thornton Wilder                                                    

Courses Taught:

• Thea. 100  Introduction to Theater
• Thea. 121  Playreading and Analysis
• Thea. 141  Acting I
• Thea. 215  Twentieth Century Theater and Drama I
• Thea. 216  Twentieth Century Theater and Drama II
• Thea. 250  Women in Contemporary Theater
• Thea. 397  Theater History
• Thea. 423  Directed Independent Study
• Thea. 473  Senior Thesis

Teaching and Research Interests:

_ Theater history and dramatic literature with an emphasis on modern theater and drama
- The avant-garde movement
- American, Asian American and other ethnic American theater
- Women and gender studies in theater
- Stage direction

Plays Directed at WLU:

2006 Winter   The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico Lorca
2005 Spring   The Tamer Tamed by John Fletcher
2007 Winter    Oscar and Felix by Neil Simon
2008 Spring    Little Shop of Horrors by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman

Other Selected Plays Directed:

2004 Spring     Fool For Love by Sam Shepard
2003 Fall         R.U.R. by Karel Capek
2003 Spring     Talking With by Jane Martin
2002 Fall         Such Foolish Affected Ladies by Molière
2002 Spring     Suburbia by Eric Bogosian
2001 Fall         The Lion in Winter by James Goldman
2001 Spring     The Adding Machine by Elmer Rice
2000 Fall          Beyond Therapy by Christopher Durang
2000 Spring     The Visit by Friedrich Duerrenmatt
1999 Fall         The Memorandum by Vàclav Havel

Selected Publications:

2008 "Gothic Aesthetics of Entanglement and Endangerment in The Sound of a Voice and The House of Sleeping Beauties,” forthcoming in Asian Gothic: A Critical Reader, published by McFarland Press.

2007 "Reclaiming Ritual: Feminism and Post-Colonialism in Two Plays by Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl,”  forthcoming in The Atlantic Literary Review, published by Atlantic Publishers."

2005 "Wakako Yamauchi" in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Asian American authors. Edited by Deborah Madsen. Columbia: Gale    Publishers.

2005 "Dismantling the Realist Character in Velina Hasu Houston's Tea and David Henry Hwang's FOB" in Literary Gestures, the Aesthtic in Aisan American Literature, published by Temple University Press.
                Choice Magazine: Winner of "Outstanding Academic Title for 2006" Award

Recent Conferences:

Southeast Theatre Conference, Theatre Symposium, Auburn University, 2005

• II International Conference on American Theatre and Drama, University of Màlaga, Spain 2004
• Midwest Modern Language Association, Chicago, IL 2003.

Grants:

2005   Mellon Fellowship, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
2005   Glenn Summer Research Grant, Washington and Lee University
2004   Central Research and Development Fund, University of Pittsburgh awarded but declined