213 Bivins Building Durham, NC 27708

(919) 660-3364 (office) (919) 684-8906 (fax) (email)

Education

PhD	University of Chicago	2001
MA	University of Chicago	1993
Post-Baccalaureate	University of Pennsylvania	1992
BA	St. John's College, Santa Fe	1990

Awards, Honors, and Distinctions

Duke Center for Informational Technology Special iPod Investigation Grants, Duke University Center for Informational Technology, January 2006
Duke Center for Informational Technology Special iPod Investigation Grants, Duke University Center for Informational Technology, December 2004
Duke University Instructional Technology Fellowship, Center for Instructional Technology, Duke University, 2004-2005
University of Chicago Society of Fellows Harper-Schmidt Fellowship (declined), University of Chicago, 2002
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2001-2002
Honors, University of Chicago Dissertation, June 2000

  Composing Credits:

1. Overture to "Benito Cereno", http://www.thetheaterofthemind.com/benito_cereno.htm, November 1, 2006
   This overture is inspired by the first few pages of description in Herman Melville’s novella, Benito Cereno. The novella, in turn, is based on a true story of how an American sea captain meets with a Spanish captain aboard a slave ship on which a revolt has recently occurred. Because the slaves have threatened the Spanish captain and made him act as though nothing is wrong, the American captain does not realize what the reality of the situation is. It is this quality of the masquerade that gives the story its interesting perspective: as the master plays the part of the master, the slave plays the part of the slave, while the reality is the opposite. In my overture I have tried to convey this ambiguity against the sonic background of Melville’s oceanic description.
2. Orpheus Against the Sirens, http://www.thetheaterofthemind.com/orpheus.htm, October 1, 2006
   This tone poem is part of larger projected work entitled The Orpheus Project, a symphonic triptych based on three myths about Orpheus. This first piece (included here) tells the little-known story of Orpheus’ encounter with and defeat of the Sirens; the second will narrate his loss of Eurydice and failed attempt to return her from Hades; and the third will tell the story of his death at the hands of the Bacchantes. When completed, the project will also be animated using elements from Greek vase-painting.
3. Words and Music, Fall 2005
   This piece is featured on my website and podcast, "The Theater of the Mind" (www.thetheaterofthemind.com) The pieces featured on "The Theater of the Mind" are one- person shows that I have adapted, scored, and performed. They are made accessible through a website as computer files in mp3 file format that can be either downloaded or received as podcasts. These performance pieces explore the possibilities of using computer software and sound equipment to alter the voice, create sound effects, and write tightly interwoven dramatic music that explicates such things as character, mood, action, and setting. In "Words and Music" (text by Samuel Beckett), two characters entitled Words and Music (or Joe and Bob as they are sometimes called) work together and against each other in order to produce songs, musical interludes, and lyric poetry. To some extent, they are led by a third character, Croak, who, as the name suggests, exists somewhere in between sound and sense. The lyrical nature of this short piece ranges from the melancholic to the gently comic.
4. Carol for SATB, Solists, and Alto Recorder-A Hymn to the Nativity2004/12/04-2004/12/04
   This piece is a four-part work entitled A Hymn to the Nativity. It is based on the poem, “In the Holy Nativity of Our Lord God: A Hymn Sung as by the Shepherds,” by the Renaissance author, Richard Crashaw (ca. 1613-1649). The poem is comprised of a series of duets and choruses involving two shepherds, Thyrsis and Tityrus, who have recently witnessed the birth of Christ, and a chorus of unnamed shepherds, who have gathered to hear the story of this birth. In the movement presented here, the chorus of shepherds is just gathering to ask Thyrsis and Tityrus to tell them the good news.
5. Song for Voice and Piano-"Mother, I Cannot Mind My Wheel"2004/12/04-2004/12/04
   The text for this song is taken from Walter Savage Landor's poem, "Mother, I Cannot Mind My Wheel," which is itself based on Sappho fragment 102. I translate the fragment thus: "Dear mother, alas I have lost the strength to weave the loom/Subdued with longing for a youth by languorous Aphrodite." As Landor’s poem is a variation on the content of this fragment, so my song is a variation on its form. The anacreontic meter of the original informs my rhythms, while Sappho’s melody, inherent to ancient Greek as a language accented by musical pitch rather than emphatic stress, informs my melodies.
6. Trio for Piano, Cello, and Violin-Trios Without Words: Four Homecoming Poems by Emily Dickinson2004/12/04-2004/12/04
   This four-part work is based on four poems by Emily Dickinson, each of which deals with the theme of coming home in one way or another, from the perspective of the abandoned who awaits another to that of the one who longs for death. Orchestrated for piano, violin, and cello, this group of trios is really a cycle of songs-without-words based on the following four poems respectively: “I had a guinea golden—,” “Her breast is fit for pearls,” “What Inn is this,” and “Heart, not so heavy as mine.”
7. Song Cycle for Voice and Piano-Singing Through the Veil, Duke University, December 2, 2003
   Excerpts from my song cycle, Singing Through the Veil, were performed as part of "Performing Dissent," a collaborative show honoring the 100-year anniversary of the Bassett Affair. The song cycle is meant to honor and promote the ideal of higher education for African-Americans but not at the expense of their own culture. Each of the 14 songs is based upon each of the 14 chapters in W. E. B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk. All but the last of these chapters begins with a poetic epigram taken from a famous European-American writer followed by a few measures from an African-American spiritual. This song cycle is essentially a theme and variation built upon the notes of these spirituals married to the words of the poets. It is meant to symbolically as well as culturally integrate African- American and European-American culture.

  Dramaturgy Credits:

1. Dramaturgy Credits, Duke University, Autumn 2004
   Dramaturg for Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts directed by Amit Mahtaney
2. Dramaturgy Credits, Autumn 2004-Spring 2005
   Dramaturg for Tony Kushner's Angels in America directed by Jeffrey Storer
3. Dramaturgy Credits, Duke University, Autumn 2004
   Dramaturg for Tom Stoppard's Hapgood directed by Jeffrey West
4. Dramaturg Credits, Duke University, Autumn 2003
   Dramaturg for Marlane Meyer's Why Things Burn directed by Jody McAuliffe

Publications (listed separately)

  Invited Lectures:

1. “‘I see a voice’: Radio and the Need for Narrative", Modern Language Association Conference, Chicago, Winter 2007
2. “When the Means Become the Ends: Technology in Cinema and Opera", Modern Language Association Conference, Chicago, Winter 2007
3. Interlinear Music: Claude Debussy’s "Pelléas et Mélisande", Modern Language Association Conference in Philadelphia, PA, December, 2006
4. “The Transatlantic Minstrel Show: British Romanticism and American Blackface, Modern Language Association in Philadelphia, PA, December, 2006
5. “Old-time Radio Meets New-Fangled Technology: Teaching Radio with an iPod”, Duke University, The Duke Podcasting Symposium, September 2005
6. “From Minstrel Shows to Radio Shows: Racism and Realism in Blackface and Blackvoice”-Presenter, 2004 Modern Language Association Conference, Philadelphia, December 2004
7. The Impact of the Graphic Arts upon Romantic and Modernist Painting, Guest Lecture in "History of Ideas," European College of Liberal Arts Summer University, Summer 2002
8. The Greek Enlightenment, Guest Lecture in "History of Ideas," European College of Liberal Arts Summer University, Summer 2002
9. Aleksandr Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, Guest Lecture in "History of Ideas," European College of Liberal Arts Summer University, Summer 2002
10. Jane Austen's Persuasion, Guest Lecture in "History of Ideas," European College of Liberal Arts Summer University, Summer 2002
11. Blaise Pascal's Pensees, Guest Lecture in "History of Ideas," European College of Liberal Arts Summer University, Summer 2002
12. Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart and Gaetano Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, Guest Lecture in "History of Ideas," Guest Lecture in "Queen Elizabeth I in Text and Image," University of Pennsylvania, April 2002
13. Stephen Foster and Nineteenth-Century American Folk Music, Guest Lecture in "Early America in Image and Text," University of Pennsylvania, October 2001
14. Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Guest Lecture in "Readings in World Literature," University of Chicago, April 2001
15. Escaping the Individual: A Noumenal Journey in Franz Schubert’s Die Winterreise, American Conference on Romanticism: Inventing the Individual, Miami University, 0000

1. “iDentity and the iPod: The Performance of Identity in Broadcasting and Podcasting”, Duke University, “The Duke Podcasting Symposium”, September 2005
2. “Opera into Film: An Evolutionary Model of Adaptation,” Presenter, 2004 Association of Literary Scholars and Critics Conference in New Orleans, November 2004
3. “Poetic Frogs and Musical Princes: The Transmemberment of Poetry and Music” -Presenter, 2004 Modern Language Association Conference, Philadelphia, 5 December 2004
4. Melopoetics in the Long Nineteeth Century: An Intermedial Study of Literature, Music, and the Visual Arts, University of Pennsylvania Humanities Forum, February 2002
5. The Politics of Form: Drama and Narrative in Nineteenth-Century Theory and Practice, University of Pennsylvania German Department Colloquium, January 2002
6. Opera Goes to the Movies: Song and Cinematic Technology, Contemporary Music Festival: Sights and Sounds, Indiana State University, November 2001
7. Escaping the Individual: A Noumenal Journey in Franz Schubert's Die Winterreise, American Conference on Romanticism: Inventing the Individual, Miami University, November 2001
8. Godwin and De Quincey, Session Chair at American Conference on Romanticism: Inventing the Individual, Miami University, November 2001
9. Failed Music Drama as Successful Music Parody: Wagner's Gotterdammerung and Aristophanes' Frogs, Comparative Drama Conference, Ohio State University, April 2001
10. Nothing Is But What Is Not: Greek Epic and German National Identity in Wager's Ring Cycle, Bratwurst und Doner: Perspectives on German National Identity, University of Wisconsin at Madison, March 2001

1. Round Table Disccusion on The Institutions of Opera in Paris From the July Revolution to the Dreyfus Affair: An International Symposium-panel participant, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, October 2004
2. Round Table on the Musical, Little Women-Co-organizer and Participant, Duke University, October 2004
3. “Reaches of the Mind: Knowledge and its Limits”-Organizer and Panel Participant, Duke University, November 20, 2004

Conferences Organized

Creator and Organizer, Theater and Performance Studies Graduate Workshop, 2006 - present

Member, American Composers Forum, November 30, 2006 - present

Co-Organizer, Round Table on the Musical, Little Women, Autumn 2004

Organizer, “Reaches of the Mind: Knowledge and its Limits”, November 20, 2004

Professional Service

Dramaturgy Certificate committee, Autumn 2003

Theater Studies Representative for Arts and Sciences Council, 2007-present

Special Task Force on the Arts, Spring 2006

Director of Undergraduate Studies, 2005-2007

Major Advisor, Fall 2005-Present

Hiring Committee: Playwright Search, Fall-2005-Present

Member, Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, Autumn 2004 to present

Member, Modern Language Association, Autumn 2000 to present

Member, American Musicological Society, Autumn 2000 to present

Member, College Music Society, Autumn 2000 to present

Theater Studies Research Committee, Autumn 2004 to present