Michael EvendenDepartment ChairProfessor, Theater StudiesDirector of Undergraduate Research, Theater StudiesCo-Artistic Director & Resident Dramaturg, Theater Emory

Michael Evenden (he/him) received his DFA in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism at the Yale School of Drama, where he was also a faculty member in the opera program of the School of Music. He has variously taught acting, directing, and dramatic history, literature, and criticism at Brigham Young University, Allegheny College, Trinity University, and Cornell University. He came to Emory in 1987 as a member of the Theater Studies faculty and Resident Dramaturg at Theater Emory. He has been an assistant literary manager of the Yale Repertory Theater, an associate editor of Theater Magazine, the literary manager of the Promised Valley Playhouse in Salt Lake City, and, in Atlanta, has been a production dramaturg for the Alliance Theater (August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia), the Georgia Shakespeare Festival, Actor’s Express (David Hare’s Judas Kiss, and the world premiere of Robert Schenkkan’s Handler), and Theatrical Outfit (the world premiere adaptation of John Kennedy O’Toole’s Conspiracy of Dunces). He has also served as a consultant dramaturg, hired by actors Dianne Wiest and Harris Yulin for projects on and off Broadway, and by Yup’ik storyteller and playwright Jack Dalton for his plays Assimilation and The Last of His Kind, developed for Native Voices at the Autry in San Diego and Cyrano’s Theater in Anchorage, Alaska. At Theater Emory, in addition to production dramaturgy, he has acted in and directed occasional projects, has devised experimental performances integrating dramatic, poetic, and historical materials, and has happily participated in the development of new plays by Frank Manley, Steve Murray, Robert Schenkkan, David Kranes, and Matthew Maguire. He is the author of a number of scholarly articles and reviews, and provided the website materials for the tenth edition of Brockett and Hildy’s History of the Theatre. He is also the author of a book, Silence and Selfhood: The Desire of Order in Mozart’s Magic Flute, published by the Peter Lang Press.