In this commentary, summarized from a recent interview, the author shares insights and memories from a career devoted to drama and performance studies. He enthusiastically recounts events, initiatives, and collaborations that have helped sustain his lifelong passion for performance.

The word "performance" is the basis for our medium. It's what we work toward, look forward to, and talk about with endless fervor. But does this word, this concept, this idea, actually stifle learning, artistic expression, and growth? As a director and professor of theatre for the past 13 years, I have watched this word become the knave…

Reverend Father Professor Amechi Nicholas Akwanya is one of the towering scholars of literature in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world. For decades, and still counting, Fr. Prof. Akwanya has worked arduously, professing literature by way of teaching, researching, and writing in the Department of English and Literary Studies of the University of…

In 2007, "About Campus" published the author's article "Humble and Hopeful: Welcoming First-Generation Poor and Working-Class Students to College." It has been used as a handout in various student orientations, included as a chapter in Teresa Heinz Housel and Vickie Harvey's "The Invisibility Factor: Administrators and…

Professors from American University and artists and educators from Imagination Stage, a children's theater and arts-education organization in nearby Bethesda, Maryland, have combined their intellectual and artistic strengths over the past 12 years to create an arts-integrated educational program for elementary and secondary schools throughout the…

As co-chairs of a tribute panel for their academic mentors, Carolyn Ellis and Art Bochner, the authors knew what the traditional responsibilities would require, but as a performer and a poet, they were inspired to do something more creative. Something poetic. Something performative. Something different. In this article, the authors present a…

Chronicles the demise of "Exchange: A Journal of Opinion for the Performing Arts." Points out that this passing demonstrates the fact that theatre is based on proficient action, not scholarship, and publications that cater to writing will probably fail to interest theatre academics. (PD)

Affirmative and negative positions on the resolution were presented in a debate at the 1982 Association for Communication Administration Seminar. Questions were discussed that are basic to an adequate evaluation of the work of directors in colleges and universities. (PD)

Discusses the importance of faculty attitude in ensuring that program evaluations have valuable and long-term effects. (PD)

Introduces the issues involved in evaluating speech communication and theater faculty, as presented in the 1982 Association for Communication Administration Seminar. (PD)

Suggests that "Ties That Bind" is an exemplary model of critical dramaturgy. Offers a framework of organizational theatrics to provide a context for understanding the author's view of critical dramaturgy. Suggests that Taylor's play is critical dramaturgy because it addresses hegemony and "cooptation." Presents a discussion of…

A faculty mentor is that person in the university theatre department who initiates students into not only the world of subject matter but also the world of scholarly and academic action. A mentor trains a "thinker of the theatre" to take a place in the intelligentsia that is responsible for producing art and retaining the stewardship of artistic…

Presents the text of an interview with Robert Brustein, Dean of the Yale School of Drama and Artistic Director of the Yale Repertory Theatre from 1966 until 1979. Discusses his work with experimental theater at Yale and the place of theater and drama in the university and society. (PD)

Describes the author's experience in writing and directing a staged reading of "Ties That Bind" at the 2002 Academy of Management Meetings in Denver as an all-academy symposium. Presents an epistemology that includes knowing in your gut and knowing in your head. Hopes to facilitate a move within the audience from being a feeling but passive…

Methods for evaluating the creative endeavors of performing artist-educators in the academic setting are suggested in this paper. The following topics are discussed: the problems involved in evaluating artist-educators with an academic yardstick; factors that cause problems in evaluating performing artist-educators' work; the need to educate…