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Native Theater/Drama and Environmental Justice

Nov 10, 2014, 12:00 pm1:30 pm

Dr. Theresa May is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Oregon. Her research and creative work draws connections between theatre and performance, community and environmental justice.  Her recent book Salmon is Everything: Community-based Theatre from the Klamath Watershed, is part of the First Peoples Series of Oregon State University Press (2014), and includes essays by Klamath, Yurok and Karuk collaborators about the process of developing a play documenting the salmon crisis on the Klamath River. The play was produced at UO in 2011. She also directed the first US production of Burning Vision by First Nations playwright Marie Clements, which traces the mining of uranium on Dene land; and in 2014-15 she will direct Sila, by Chantal Bilodeou, which focuses on the impact of climate change on Inuit communities.  Other publications include: Readings in Performance and Ecology, (Palgrave 2012), “Beyond Bambi: Towards a Dangerous Ecocriticism in Theatre Studies” (Theatre Topics), and articles in Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Theatre Topics, On Stage Studies, American Drama, and Canadian Theatre Review.  She teaches Acting, Native drama, Latino/a Drama, and course in theatre and social change.