PhD, University of Washington

Theatre History, Theory, and Criticism

Dissertation: Four Resurrected Histories of the 1896 Premiere of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi

Chair: Odai Johnson

MFA, California Institute of the Arts

Directing for the Stage

Mentor: Robert Benedetti

BA, Colgate University

Interdisciplinary Humanities

Associate Professor of Instruction

University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX

2024 - present

Assistant Professor, School of Theatre

The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA

2017 - 2023

Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre

Department of Performance and Communication Arts

St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY

2014-2016

Theater History and Practice

Directing / Acting / Playwriting / Play Analysis / Introduction to Theater

Group Performance: Devising Drama From Non-Dramatic Sources

Theater and Society / Twentieth Century Avant-Garde Theater: Theory, History, Practice 

Graduate Seminars in Theatrical Modernism, 19th Century French Drama, and Classical Theater History

Humanities

Introduction to Intellectual History

Theories of the Avant-Garde

Science and its Critics

First-Year Program Seminars: Uses of Fairy Tales: How Mythology Shapes Society / The Metamorphoses: From Ovid to Today/ The History of the Future: Evolution of Western Worldviews

• "The Black Crook." in Fifty Key Stage Musicals. London: Routledge, 2022: 8-15.
• “On the Morality of Rocks in Scenic Design.” Prompt: A Journal of Theatre Theory, Practice, and Teaching 1.1 (2020).
• "The Odeon of Pericles: a Tale of the First Athenian Music Hall, the Second Persian Invasion of Greece, Theatre Space in Fifth Century BCE Athens, and the Artifacts of an Empire.” Theatre Symposium 24 (2016): 21-40.
• “Rachilde’s Supermale of Letters and the Invention of the Ubu Roi Riot.” Text and Presentation (2012): 92-108.
• “Loië Fuller and the Coercive Moral Force of Colored Light: Modernity, Eternity, and the Folies-Bergère.” Book chapter in Women in the Arts in the Belle Epoque: Essays on Influential Artists, Writers and Performers. London: McFarland & Co., 2012. 97-117.
• "'It Sounds Too Much Like Comrade’: The Preservation of American Ideals in Room Service.” Journal of American Drama and Theater 20.2 (2008): 29-48.
• Ghost writer for 16 entries in the FANDEX Family Field Guide to Shakespeare. 2nd Edition. New York: Workman, 2003.

• “The Impossible Nouveau Théâtre, 15 rue Blanche, Paris, 1896.” Mid America Theatre Conference, Minneapolis, March 2023.
• “The 1866 Black Crook and Why We (Continue to) Say It Was the First Musical.” Mid America Theatre Conference, Clevaland, March 2022.
• “Mr. Burns, the Audience of the Future, and the Undergraduate of Today.” Comparative Drama Conference, Orlando, October 2021.
• “Nineteenth-Century Parisian Audiences and the Ritual of Rioting in the Theatre.” Comparative Drama Conference, Orlando, April 2019.
• “An Imaginary Revolution: Spectacular Historiography and the Perfectly Ordinary Premiere of Ubu Roi.” Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) National Conference, Boston, August 2018.
• “The Marketing of ‘Merdre’: The Extravagant Publicity Campaign for the 1896 Premiere of Ubu Roi.” Comparative Drama Conference, Orlando, April 2017.
• “The Real Battle of Ubu Roi : The Last Stand of Henry Bauër, Anarchist Theater Critic of the Parisian Fin de Siècle.” Mid-America Theater Conference, St. Louis, March 2013.
• “André Antoine and the Audience attending Ubu Roi.” Theater History Symposium of the South-East Theater Conference, Furman University, Greenville, SC, April 2011.
• “A Phantasmagoria Haunting Paris: Walter Benjamin and the Avenue de l’Opéra.” American Society for Theater Research, Annual Conference. Seattle, November 2010.
• "The Birds of Mars: The Carnival Destruction of the Phoenix Theater in 1617.” Theater History Symposium of the South-East Theater Conference, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, April 2007.
• “Walking in the Unreal City: Analyses of Deborah Warner’s Angel Project.” Mid-America Theater Conference, Chicago, March 2006.
• “Cabbages, Kings, and the Offal Reality of Edward Hall’s Rose Rage.” International Federation for Theater Research, Washington, D.C., July 2005.
• “Revolution and Reason in Bertolt Brecht’s The Measures Taken and Heiner Müller’s The Task.” Comparative Drama Conference, Los Angeles, April 2005.
• “The All-Powerful Train Station: Getting to Mallarmé’s Symbolist Reality.” Mid-America Theater Conference, Kansas City, MO, March, 2005.

PASSION, POISON, AND PETRIFICATION University of Texas at Arlington 2026

This currently-in-development production of Shaw’s rarely performed 1905 play Passion, Poison, and Petrification is a collaboration between the UTA Theatre department’s Conceptual Design Series and the Deaf Studies program. It will be performed in American Sign Language.

PASSAGE University of Texas at Arlington 2025

This currently-in-development runway-style production of Passage showcases the complex tensions and identity politics inherent in the relationship between the technologically-advanced and colonizing “Country Y” and the resource-rich but underdeveloped “Country X” which has been colonized. Chen’s drama is loosely based on the 1924 novel A Passage to India by E. M. Forster.

ROOM SERVICE University of Texas at Arlington 2024

This production of the 1937 farce Room Service is performed by a predominantly female cast. It was inspired by the legacy of many early 20^th-century American women who disguised themselves as men in order to enter the workforce and gain some measure of economic independence.

EVERYBODY Penn State Centre Stage 2023

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Everybody is a postmodern update of a 15^th century play. It is cast by an onstage lottery every night. Actors must be prepared to play any role in the show. Production collaboratively shaped by Sebastian Trainor (lead director and line producer) with smaller units of the show (“God,” “Friendship”, “Kinship/Cousin,” “Stuff,” “Love,” “Danse Macabre”) guided by six associate directors who rehearsed simultaneously.

SHE KILLS MONSTERS Penn State Centre Stage 2018

This production of Qui Nguyen’s She Kills Monsters, rooted in 1990s American pop culture, was collaboratively shaped by Sebastian Trainor (director), Erik Raymond Johnson (associate director & fight choreographer), Michele Dunleavy (dance dragonographer), and William J. Doan (film animator).

THE ADDING MACHINE St. Lawrence University 2014

This production of the 1923 American Expressionist play featured a giant mechanical turntable, an overall production design inspired by silent films of the 1920s, and a cast of 9 college students playing 45 separate roles.

MACHINAL Potsdam College Theatre 2002

Dramaturg and Producer for educational production of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal. Different portions of the production guided by various directors. Directors include advanced directing students at Potsdam College, Members of the College Faculty, Freelance Guest Directors and myself. Working method inspired by Robert Benedetti.

A CRETACEOUS CONCERTO The Orchestra of Northern New York 2002

Event producer and director of staging/narrative for educational dinosaur-themed orchestral concert for young audiences. Concert included pre-show “Instrument Petting Zoo” where young music enthusiasts have an opportunity to try and play any instrument in the orchestra.

UBU THE KING Stonehill College 2001

A version of the fin-de-siècle French play that launched the avant-garde theatre of the 20thcentury, accompanied by a (sometimes) marching kazoo and theremin band, and played on a set mimicking a huge toilet.

MR SHAKESPEARE & MR PORTER Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble 2000

The dream musical: book by William Shakespeare, music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Abridged Shakespeare plays, played straight, featuring the characters in several musical numbers. Production features: Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

PEEROPOLIS Alaska Theatre of Youth 1999

Based on the travels of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, featuring a Houdini-esque Peer Gynt as the greatest escape artist of all time. Script developed in conjunction with the Alaska Theatre of Youth.

ON THE VERGE Colgate University Theatre 1999

An in-the-round & environmental presentation of Eric Overmeyer’s play performed with cast and audience in an oversized electrified sandbox. Production Design by Marjorie Bradley Kellogg.

GENESIS CIRCUS Walt Disney Modular Theatre 1997

Modern Medieval Mysteries performed on carnival trailers surrounding a central audience all under a “big top” of lights. Adaptation and additional material by Sebastian Trainor

BRAVE NEW WORLD Walt Disney Modular Theatre 1996

Director of “first unit” of Robert Benedetti’s walkthrough presentation of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Production featured a cast of over 100 with audience tours departing every 14 minutes.

Directing Mentors:

Jules Aaron; Lucy Bailey; Herbert Blau; Craig Belknap; Robert Benedetti; Lou Florimonte; Frank Hauser, CBE; Jerome Kilty; Jacques Levy; Michael Mitchell; Lewis Palter; Howard Stein (Dramaturgy); Barbara Vann.