Jodi I. Kanter

Bio

Jodi Kanter’s research and practice are concerned with how engagement with drama can heal trauma and strengthen communities. She is the author of two books in the Theatre of the Americas series (Southern Illinois University Press), Performing Loss and Presidential Libraries as Performance. Her third book, Improvising Community, traces the history and impact of Chicago’s Piven Theatre Workshop and is forthcoming from Routledge. She has been a member of the editorial board of Text and Performance Quarterly for 20 years and her articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals in theatre, performance studies, literature and expressive arts therapy.  

Jodi is also the Director of Graduate Studies and a faculty member of the Academy for Classical Acting, a GWU-accredited MFA program in partnership with the Shakespeare Theatre Company of Washington, DC. In addition to teaching Shakespeare text and scholarship there, she teaches dramaturgy, acting, directing, and theatre history for the undergraduate Corcoran Theatre and Dance program. She has directed many productions for that program.

Jodi’s work in applied theatre has brought her into partnerships with prisons, hospices, and the medical and nursing schools at GWU, where she provides training in research ethics and implicit bias in health care systems.She is a licensed graduate professional counselor and a registered drama therapist. She has served a variety of individuals and communities in this capacity.

Current Research

Improvising Community: How the Piven Theatre Workshop Makes Theatre Matter
Routledge Press, 2027 (forthcoming).

Publications

Books:

• Performing Loss: Building Communities Through Theater and Writing
  Southern Illinois University Press, 2007
  Theatre in the Americas Series
• Presidential Libraries as Performance: Curating American Character from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush
  Southern Illinois University Press, 2017
  Theatre in the Americas Series

Selected Articles:

• “The Expansion Bias: Loss in Landy’s Role Theory and Method,” The Drama Therapy Review 10.2, 2024
• “Mourners in Chief:  First Ladies and the Death of the President,” The Cambridge Companion to First Ladies, 2024.
• “Forum Theatre: Teaching Nursing Students Structural Racism and Health Inequities.”  Nurse Educator, September 2021. 46.5.  Short, co-authored article.
• “Talkbacks:  Asking Good Discussion Questions.”  The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, Magda Romanska, ed.  Routledge, 2015.

Selected Dramaturgy (Theatre Research for Live Performance):

• Voices from a Changing Middle East Festival, Mosaic Theatre, April 2017
• Rapture, Blister, Burn, Roundhouse Theatre, 2015
• Awake and Sing!, Olney Theatre, 2014
• Hammock, The Dance Exchange, 2011

Education

M.A., Lesley University, Cambridge MA 2023
Degree in Counseling, Expressive Arts Therapy

Ph.D., Northwestern University 2000
Department of Performance Studies.  Mary Zimmerman, dissertation director.  Certificate in Gender Studies

M.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 1997
Department of Communication Studies.
Certificate in Performance Studies

B.A. cum laude, Harvard University 1991 
Department of English Literature

Professional Organizations

• Association for Theatre in Higher Education
• National Communications Association
• North American Drama Therapy Association