MAGDA ROMANSKA

WRITER, DRAMATURG, THEATRE, PEFORMANCE AND MEDIA SCHOLAR

I am a writer, dramaturg and theatre, performance and media scholar. I study and research issues on the intersection of theatre, media, and technology, including multiplatform dramaturgy, human/AI interaction in performance, the ethics and representation of human enhancements, and posthuman theatre and performance. 

A graduate of Stanford's honor program in Modern Thought and Literature, and Cornell's doctoral program in Theatre, Film and Dance, I am an Associate Professor of Theatre Studies and Dramaturgy at Emerson College in Boston, MA, a Research Associate at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, and the Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of TheTheatreTimes.com, the largest global digital theatre portal, for which I won the 2018 Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy. In this capacity, I lead a team of over 140 Regional Managing Editors around the world, covering theatre in over 80 countries and regions.

My past books and publications cover the areas of post-traumatic theatre, a theory of comedy, and dramaturgy. I am the author or editor of four critically acclaimed theatre books, including The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor, Reader in Comedy: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism (co-edited with Alan Ackerman); and The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, a leading handbook of dramaturgy. My fifth book, TheaterMachine: Tadeusz Kantor in Context (co-edited with Kathleen Cioffi, is forthcoming from NUP.  I am also the sole editor of a ten-volume series Focus on Dramaturgy to be released within the next two years from Routledge.

My book chapters and articles have been published in journals and anthologies: Postdramatic Theatre and Form , Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy: Case Studies from the Field (forthcoming), International Women Stage Directors, Re-writing Chekhov: The Text and Its Mutations, The Sacred Tropes, The Cultural Politics of Heiner Muller, and Ghosts, Stories, Histories, Theatre Survey, TDR: The Drama Review, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, Mercurian: A Theatrical Translation Review, Gender Forum, Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and Toronto Slavic Quarterly.

My past research on theatre and performance has been recognized with two international awards from the American Society for Theatre Research and from the Polish Studies Association. My current projects include two books: The Bionic Body: Technology, Disability, and Posthumanism, and Transmedia Dramaturgy: Multiplatform and Networked Performance.   

I have extensive editorial experience, serving in the past on the editorial boards of Theater magazine, the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities, Diacritics: A Review Journal of Criticism and Theory (I was the first graduate student from outside Romance Studies that the Board has chosen to invite) , Journal of Law and Theatre, and Polish Theatre Perspectives. I was also a founding editor of Palimpsest: Yale Literary and Arts Magazine, which was featured in Print Magazine’s Regional Design Annual and chosen from among over twenty thousand entries.

I also write think and opinion pieces, including op eds, and theatre reviews, which have been published in The LA Review of Books, The Boston Globe, The Theatre Times, and The Cosmopolitan Review.

I taught 30 different courses on theatre, performance and transmedia, including at Harvard University, Yale School of Drama, Cornell University, and Emerson College. I worked on over 30 theatre and opera productions as either dramaturg, playwright or director, and served as the resident dramaturg for the Boston Lyric Opera. I am a recipient of Apothetae and Lark Theatre Playwriting Fellowship from Time Foundation, and my first play Opheliamachine, had its premiere in Los Angeles to a slew of positive reviews.