The two main aspirations I have had for my students are passionate pursuit of knowledge and creative and intellectual confidence. In my experience as a teacher at City Tech, I have found that applied pedagogies of original research, creative writing, and collaborative learning are pragmatic means of cultivating these qualities. Especially because the students in my classes come from a range of disciplines—mostly outside theatre—I have found that it is important to put skills and ideas already possessed by students into conversation with the methods and subjects of theatre history, play analysis, and urban performance research. Within comparative contexts, and across intersecting networks of discourse, students have begun to recognize the significance of their own roles in the production of meaning.

The interdisciplinary approach of my research reveals itself in workshops that engage the diverse student body at City Tech. My students engage with the archive directly, attending backstage tours, visiting museums and libraries, and constructing models of architectures and stage devices from Ancient Greece to contemporary Broadway. I challenge students to read play texts and historical accounts within the contexts of social, economic, and cultural frames. This way, history is divulged as a series of strategic forces rather than as a repository of data.