“The Tragedy of Mariam Reconsidered: Methodological Tensions and the Rewriting of Elizabeth Cary Criticism”
Theatre & Performance Notes and Counternotes
Volume 2, Issue 1 · Penn State University Press · 2025
Early modern literature / Research
STAGECRAFT
AND KNOWLEDGE.
My research brings together performance, experimental science, and gender, examining how early modern drama stages attempts to know and claim authority over the female body.
How can a stage prop change
what it means to know the body?
Experimental Stagecraft: Stage Properties and the Female Interior in Early Modern Tragedy
My dissertation examines how Shakespeare and other dramatists used live performance to produce knowledge about the female body. I study how props, special effects, and the ways playwrights direct an audience’s attention make possible forms of knowing that the written script alone cannot convey.
A HEART
ON THE STAGE.
In John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, I argue that audiences negotiate the competing identities of Annabella’s heart as human organ and stage prop in what I call a theatrical experiment. This perceptual uncertainty unsettles anatomical knowledge as an expression of authority over the female body.
Discuss my researchArticle under review: Experimental Properties, Experimental Flesh
Published scholarship
Peer-reviewed article · 2025The Tragedy of Mariam
Reading & interpretive method
Research, teaching & conversation
Birmingham, Alabama
LET’S TALK.
For research collaborations, teaching, and scholarly conversation.
sms512@miami.edu