Wendy Arons
Born1964 (age 59–60)
Birmingham, Michigan, U.S.
EducationYale University (BA)
University of California, San Diego (MFA, MA, PhD)

Wendy Arons (born 1964) is an American dramaturg, drama professor, and critic who specializes in ecodrama and German translation. She is currently a Professor of Dramatic Literature, Option Coordinator for Dramaturgy, and Director of the Center for the Arts in Society in the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University.[1] She has written and edited many pieces for journals and is the author of the book "Performance and Femininity in Eighteenth-Century German Women's Writing: The Impossible Act" (2006).

Arons has increased artistic access in the theater world to German works: for example, she has translated Brecht's "Good Person of Szechwan" from German into English for an adaptation by Tony Kushner.[2] She has also worked with Anne Bogart, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

Life and career

Wendy Arons was born in Birmingham, Michigan.[3] She attended Yale for her undergraduate degree. She then attended UC San Diego, where she earned her MFA in Dramaturgy, MA in German Literature, and PhD in Literature. Upon graduation, she worked with Anne Bogart from 1988-1989 and again in 1991. She also worked with Robert Falls on a production of "The Misanthrope" (featuring Kim Cattrall). In 1999 she joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame as an Assistant Professor of Theater. While at Notre Dame, Arons published her book "Performance and Femininity in Eighteenth-Century German Women's Writing: The Impossible Act". After eight years of teaching, she joined the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University in 2007[4] as an Associate Professor of Dramatic Literature. From 2008 to 2011, she served as the secretary of the American Society for Theatre Research. Notably, in 2012, Arons became the first person in the CMU School of Drama to win a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant. She will become the first person (along with her collaborators Sara Figal, Natalya Baldyga, and Michael Chemers) to completely translate G.E. Lessing's "Hamburg Dramaturgy" from German to English.[5]

Today, Arons runs The Pittsburgh Tatler, a theater criticism blog, as well as working as the Professor of Dramatic Literature and Option Coordinator for the Dramaturgy program at Carnegie Mellon University.

Awards and recognition

Year Award
2003 Notre Dame Boehnen Fund for the Arts Grant to attend LaMama International Directing Symposium in Bazzano Italy
2004 Maria Sybilla Merian Fellowship for archival research in Germany on 18th-century German women writers
2009 Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts Grant for "Pittsburgh Eco-Drama Festival"
2010 ASTR Domestic Exchange Grant for work on new translation of G. E. Lessing's Hamburg Dramaturgy
2012 NEH "Scholarly Editions and Translations Grant" for work on new translation of G. E. Lessing's Hamburg Dramaturgy

CMU Berkman Faculty Development Grant in support of travel related to translation of G. E. Lessing’s Hamburg Dramaturgy

ASTR Co-sponsored Events Award for 2012 Earth Matters on Stage Festival & Symposium at CMU, May 31-Jun 3 2012

Publications (selected)

Year Title
1988 The Prince of Homburg by Heinrich von Kleist. Translation commissioned by director Beth Schacter at the UCSD Department of Theatre. Produced at the Mandell Weiss Theatre, La Jolla CA, 1988.
1992 "Building Sentences, Ripping Out Hearts, Knocking Off Heads: An Interview with Friederike Roth," by Elizabeth Heinrichs. (Translation) The Divided Home/Land: Contemporary German Women’s Plays. Ed. Sue-Ellen Case. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 211-218.
1994 In the Jungle of Cities by Bertolt Brecht. Translation commissioned by director Walton Jones at the UCSD Department of Theatre. Produced at the Mandell Weiss Theatre, La Jolla CA, September 1994.
2006 Performance and Femininity in Eighteenth-Century German Women's Writing: The Impossible Act. New York: Palgrave/MacMillan, 2006 (261 p.).
2007 "'Laß mich sein, was ich bin:' Karoline Schulze-Kummerfeld’s Performance of a Lifetime." The German Quarterly 76.1 (Winter 2003): 68-85.
2012 "Queer Ecology/Contemporary Plays." Theater Journal 64 (December 2012): 565-582.
2012 Readings in Performance and Ecology. Wendy Arons and Theresa J. May, editors. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012.
2013 “Ecodramaturgy in/and Contemporary Women’s Plays.” Co-written with Theresa May. Contemporary Women Playwrights, ed. Penny Farfan and Lesley Ferris. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 181-196.
2014 "The Hamburg Dramaturgy in the Digital Age […]." Co-written with Natalya Baldyga. Lessing Yearbook/Jahrbuch 41 Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014: 303-306.
2017 "Sara Ruhl." Modern American Drama: Playwriting 2000-2009. Ed. Julia Listengarten and Cindy Rosenthal. London: Bloomsburty Methuen Drama, 2017. 161-184.
2017 "Lessing's Hamburg Dramaturgy in the Digital Age." Conference: "Lessings Hamburgische Dramaturgie im Kontext des europäischen Theaters." Sponsored by the Lessing-Akademie. Wolfenbüttel Germany, November 2012.
2017 Staging Ecology: an Anthology of Eco-Drama (working title). Book-length collection of plays, with short introductory essays by the editors. Edited with Theresa May and Nelson Gray. Work-in-progress.
2011–present "The Pittsburgh Tatler: theatre reviews, observations on local culture, comments from fictionalized readers, ruminations on the life academic, and the occasional tidbit of juicy gossip." Web blog: http://wendyarons.wordpress.com/.

References

  1. ↑ University, Carnegie Mellon. "Wendy Arons-Center for the Arts in Society - Carnegie Mellon University". www.cmu.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  2. ↑ "About Me". The Pittsburgh Tatler. 2011-04-30. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  3. ↑ "Person of Interest: Wendy Arons, CMU drama professor". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  4. ↑ University, Carnegie Mellon. "Wendy Arons-Center for the Arts in Society - Carnegie Mellon University". www.cmu.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  5. ↑ (CMU), Carnegie Mellon University. "Hamburg Dramaturgy - Carnegie Mellon University | CMU". www.cmu.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
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