{"id":27335,"date":"2024-05-24T14:35:19","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T18:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cws.charlotte.edu\/backup-coaa\/?page_id=27335"},"modified":"2025-04-09T10:40:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T14:40:25","slug":"research-theatre","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cws.charlotte.edu\/backup-coaa\/theatre\/research\/","title":{"rendered":"Research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Research – Theatre<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Department of Theatre engages in research that fosters innovative theory and creative practice. We center the role of creativity in all of our research modalities, examine the impact of theatre beyond our stages, interrogate how theatre challenges and\/or reflects the current state of society, and more. Explore the research interests of our faculty, below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rob Conkie<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Distinguished Professor Rob Conkie\u2019s research includes Shakespeare in performance, theatre and environment, ekphrasis, comics studies, and practice as research. Most recently he is writing a book, provisionally entitled \u201cShakespeare on Fire: Cymbeline in the Anthropocene in the Antipodes.\u201d It is an account of a production of Shakespeare’s late play aimed at intervening in debates about climate catastrophe. The book – in comics form – digresses from accounts of the play on the stage to meditate upon the global crisis of wildfire. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Lynne Conner<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Lynne Conner\u2019s research includes cultural history, cultural policy, and playwriting. Her recent publications include the Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts<\/em> (co-editor; 2022), for which she authored two chapters and co-authored a chapter-length Introduction and Afterword. Her play The Mother<\/em> is a 2023 Bay Area National Playwrights Festival Semi-finalist. Her play In the Garden of Live Flowers<\/em> (published by Dramatic Publishing Company) was produced by First Flight Theatre Company in 2023 and a video streaming version was awarded a 2023 Green Academy Award (\u201cBest Biopic\u201d). In April 2023, Dr. Conner was inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Carlos AlexisCruz<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Nouveau Sud Circus Project, founded and directed by Associate Professor of Theatre CarlosAlexis Cruz, explores topics of social and political importance through community engaged research and circus arts. Funded by a New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) Creation and Touring Grant, Nouveau Sud began touring La Bestia<\/a>, which addresses immigration and migration in the U.S., in summer 2023. Cruz has also begun to develop new work investigating gun violence, Violenza<\/em>, funded by a Cultural Visions Grant from the Arts & Science Council.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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David Janowiak<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Professor Janowiak\u2019s research includes both performing and directing. Recently he voiced the role of Narrator as a voiceover artist for an independent film project titled \u201cBonsai.\u201d He collaborated with award-winning dancer, choreographer, teacher, and film maker Les Watanabe on the project. Watanabe said this of the film: “Many years ago, while my father was working on his Bonsai plants in the garden, my mother said to me \u2018He made my life a Bonsai.\u2019 The result, decades later was this extremely personal work intertwining the technically brutal creation of the beautiful bonsai tree with the life of my mother.” The film garnered 14 Laurels in 2023, including presentations at the International Gold Awards; Florence Film Awards (Best Experimental Film); 8 and a Halfilm Awards (Best Art House Short Film); the Frida Film Festival (Best Experimental Film); and winning the \u2018Best Original Screenplay\u2019 award at the 2023 New York Film Awards, where it was presented at the Kraine Theater (NY) last September. Janowiak is starting the North Carolina New Works Festival in a partnership between the Theatre Department and Three Bone Theatre.  First season is slated for Summer 2026.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Mark Pizzato<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Mark Pizzato\u2019s research includes theatre, film, neuro psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and performance studies. His recent research endeavor includes a book published in May 2024 from Bloomsbury Press entitled, European Churches and Chinese Temples as Neuro-Theatrical Sites<\/em> in which Dr. Pizzato compares monumental designs and performance spaces of Christian, Buddhist, and related sanctuaries, exploring how brain networks, animal-human emotions, and cultural ideals are reflected historically and affected today as “inner theatre” elements. In a study of over 80 buildings \u2013 shown by 40 images in the book, plus thousands of photos and videos online \u2013Pizzato demonstrates how they reflect meta-theatrical projections from prior generations. They also affect the embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended (4E) cognition of current visitors, who bring performance frameworks of belief, hope, and doubt to the sacred site. This involves neuro-social, inner\/outer theatre networks with patriarchal, maternal, and trickster paradigms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Robin Witt<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Professor of Directing Robin Witt\u2019s research includes the directing of new plays from the UK and Ireland as well as the resurrection of lost and forgotten plays from the inter-war years. She has helmed many US premieres of contemporary plays with the focus on introducing international playwrights to American audiences. Witt regularly directs in Chicago, where she is a member of both the Steep Theatre and Griffin Theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most recently, she directed David Harrower’s “A Slow Air” for Steep Theatre in Chicago where she has been an ensemble member for more than 15 years. A January 2025 review in Stage and Cinema<\/em> called the production “as riveting as it is touching” and praised Witt’s “discerning and sensitive direction.” The Chicago Tribune wrote, “If you go, expect a slow burn but plenty of flames, from which it becomes increasingly difficult to look away,” adding that the actors are “excellent here under Robin Witt\u2019s careful direction.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Research News<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\n \n Professor Nominated for Chicago Theatre ‘Jeff Award’ <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n February 12, 2026 <\/div>\n \n
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A Chicago production of Dennis Kelly\u2019s play, \u201cGirls & Boys,” directed by Professor of Theatre Robin Witt, has received four…<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n

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\n \n Seven CoA+A Faculty Receive Artist Support Grants from the Arts & Science Council <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n December 2, 2025 <\/div>\n \n
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Seven faculty in the College of Arts + Architecture are among the 137 recipients of 2025 Artist Support Grants allocated…<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n

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\n \n Wallace Foundation Grant to Fund Charlotte Study of Youth Arts Programs <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n November 3, 2025 <\/div>\n \n
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An interdisciplinary team of six UNC Charlotte researchers and three local youth arts organizations has received a $500,000 grant from…<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n

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\n \n Professor Develops New Puppet Production in Artist Residency <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n July 7, 2025 <\/div>\n \n
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Associate Professor of Scenic Design Tom Burch is an award-winning designer, with notable credits in Chicago and New York City…<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n

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\n \n Professor’s New Play to Receive Staged Reading <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n November 7, 2024 <\/div>\n \n
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Lynne Conner’s “Seven Sisters” is about sisterhood, love, loss, and aging.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n

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\n \n Professor\u2019s New Book Brings a Theatrical Perspective to the Study of Churches and Temples <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n May 2, 2024 <\/div>\n \n
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Bloomsbury Publishing has today released European Churches and Chinese Temples as Neuro-Theatrical Sites, a new book by Professor of Theatre…<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Theatre engages in research that fosters innovative theory and creative practice. We center the role of creativity in all of our research modalities, examine the impact of theatre beyond our stages, interrogate how theatre challenges and\/or reflects the current state of society, and more. Explore the research interests of our faculty, below. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_clt_a11y_last_scan":"1780429036","_clt_a11y_has_violations":"0","_clt_a11y_violations":"[]","_clt_a11y_suppressions":"","_clt_a11y_needs_validation":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-27335","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nResearch - College of Arts + Architecture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Research - College of Arts + Architecture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Department of Theatre engages in research that fosters innovative theory and creative practice. 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