Theatre and Drama

Ann Marie Shanahan

Professor, Department Chair

amshanahan@wisc.edu

(608) 262-7754

6008 Vilas Communication Hall

821 University Ave

Madison, Wisconsin 53715

Shanahan, Ann Marie

Active Speech: Sharing Scholarship on Teresa Deevy (Keynote)   Bloomsbury Methuen: The Great North American Theatre Directors, Vol. 6   SDC Journal Peer-Reviewed Section   ATHE Conference 2018: Theatres of Revolution  

Ann M. Shanahan joins the Department of Theatre and Drama as a member of the acting and directing faculty and to serve as Artistic Director. She is a scholar-artist specializing in feminist directing, theatre and social change, and representations of domestic space on stage, most recently in the work of Irish playwright Teresa Deevy. She has directed and dramaturged over 60 productions, and writes about her own and others’ directing practices. Ann is the founding co-editor (with Emily A. Rollie) of the SDC Journal’s Peer Reviewed Section. Ann is a member of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), National Theatre Conference (NTC), and incoming co-director (with Baron Kelly) of the Comparative Drama Conference (CDC). Ann comes to U-W directly from Purdue University, before that Loyola University Chicago where she served on the faculty for 20 years. She holds a BA in Drama from the Residential College of the University of Michigan, and an MFA in Directing from Northwestern University.

Select Publications

  • Shanahan, A. (2022). Retrospective of SDC Journal Peer-Reviewed Section. SDC Journal, 9(1)
  • Shanahan, A. (2021). Landscapes of Perception: Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman and Robert Wilson. In James Peck (Series Editor) (Ed.), Great North American Theatre Directors Series, 6 Bloomsbury Methuen.
  • Shanahan, A. (2021). A Visor for a Visor: Two Approaches to Staging Romeo and Juliet in a Divided Country. In Louis Fantasia (Series Editor) (Ed.), Playing Shakespeare’s Tyrants and Rebels, 4 (pp. 55-64). Peter Lang Publishers.
  • Shanahan, A. (2021). Meredith Monk: Embodying Wholeness by Working Between the Cracks. In James Peck (Series Editor) (Ed.), Landscapes of Perception: Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman and Robert Wilson, 6 (pp. 60-101). Bloomsbury Methuen.
  • Shanahan, A. Liminal Materialisms in Teresa Deevy’s In the Cellar of My Friend and Late Plays for Radio. In Úna Kealy and Kate McCarthy (Ed.), In Active Speech: Critical Perspectives on Teresa Deevy publication (invited publication of conference keynote address “Active Speech: Sharing Scholarship on Teresa Deevy,” Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford, Ireland, February 19, 2021), Open Book Publishers.
  • Shanahan, A. (2019). Making Room(s): Staging Plays about Women and Houses. In Emily Klein, Jen-Scott Mobley, and Jill Stevenson (Ed.), Performing the Family Dream House: Space, Ritual and Images of Home (pp. 87-105). Palgrave MacMillan.
  • Shanahan, A. (2019). Teaching Maria Irene Fornés’s Fefu and Her Friends. In Miriam Chirico and Kelly Younger (Ed.), How to Teach a Play: Exercises for the University Classroom (pp. 218-21). Bloomsbury Methuen.
  • Shanahan, A. (2018). Pirated Pedagogy: Performing Brecht as Radical Teaching Demonstration. In Anne Fliotsos and Gail Medford (Ed.), New Directions in Teaching Theatre Arts (pp. 193-208). Palgrave MacMillan.
  • Shanahan, A. (2013). Playing House: Staging Experiments About Women in Domestic Space. Theatre Topics, 23(2), 129-44.
  • Shanahan, A. (2011). Un-blocking Hedda and Medea through Feminist “Play” with Traditional Staging Forms. Theatre Topics, 20(1), 61-73.

Select Presentations

  • (2024). "It was, in fact, the present moment’ – exploring gender performances in process for a contemporary production of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.". Practice/Production Symposium presented at the Mid-America Theatre Conference (MATC), Madison, WI.
  • Shanahan, A. (2023). The Changing Role of Season Selection. Panelist presented at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference (ATHE), Austin, TX.
  • Shanahan, A. (2023). Liminal Materialisms – the Unique Feminist Dramaturgy of Teresa Deevy. Paper presented at the Comparative Drama Conference, Orlando, FL.
  • Shanahan, A. (2022). "Breaking Into Society" – A Detroit Corktown. Paper presented at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference (ATHE), Detroit, MI.
  • Shanahan, A. (2021). "Back to Business" – Directing Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children at a Large Research 1 institution in a Year of COVID-19. Paper presented at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference (ATHE), Austin, TX.
  • Shanahan, A. (2021). A Democracy of Notes: Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Use of (Dissonance in) John Coltrane’s Free Jazz to Forge a Democracy of Freedom in Water by the Spoonful. Paper presented at the Comparative Drama Conference, Orlando, FL.
  • Shanahan, A. (2021). ’I am about to understand …’ – Style and Gender Representation in Contemporary Stagings of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. Paper presented at the Comparative Drama Conference, Orlando, FL.
  • Shanahan, A. (2021, February). Sharing Scholarship on Teresa Deevey. Keynote/Plenary Address presented at the Active Speech, Waterford, Ireland. Link
  • Shanahan, A. (2021, February). Active Speech: Sharing Scholarship on Teresa Deevey. Keynote/Plenary Address presented at the Waterford Institute of Technology Conference, Waterford, Ireland. Link
  • Shanahan, A. (2019). Staging Contemporary Street Scenes: An Active Workshop in Adapting Bertolt Brecht's Theories of Acting for 21st Century Performances. International Conference presented at the Bertolt Brecht: Contradictions as a Method Conference, Prague, Czech Republic.