RESEARCH

Research Interests: Performance Studies, Devised Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, Participatory and Community-Engaged Research, Critical Race Theory, Childhood Studies, Civic Engagement

My research explores how theatre and performance can help youth and communities understand their experiences, examine social problems, and take a more active role in shaping their communities and institutions. I am especially interested in participatory forms of theatre, storytelling, and community-based research that allow people to move from being observers to becoming active participants, researchers, and decision-makers.

At the heart of this work is a larger question about power: Who is given the freedom to speak, experiment, make mistakes, and be recognized as fully human? This question also guides my research on childhood, particularly the ways race shapes who is allowed the protections and possibilities we associate with being a child.

My research examines how Black children are often denied the protections associated with childhood. Drawing on the work of Victor Turner, I think about childhood as a time when young people are generally expected to experiment, make mistakes, play, and grow.

But that freedom is not given equally to all children.

In conversation with Frank B. Wilderson III and Afro-pessimism, I explore how anti-Blackness shapes these differences through law, literature, performance, and film, influencing whose innocence, vulnerability, and future are protected.

I do not argue that theatre alone can solve these problems. Instead, performance can help make visible the beliefs, behaviors, and institutional practices that often go unquestioned. It can create a space for people to examine how power works, challenge assumptions, and imagine different possibilities.

My current work continues to explore theatre as a tool for civic learning, career development, community-engaged research, and institutional change. I am especially interested in creating meaningful ways for young people and historically excluded communities to participate in research, policy, and decision-making—not simply as people being studied, but as researchers, artists, thinkers, and civic leaders themselves.