A playful exploration of gender performance

While I directly cite "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory" (1988) in my talk, Butler’s theory of gender as an improvised and embodied performance is expanded in this text. This work is known as one foundational to queer theory, and also very timely in continued discussions against biological essentialism in forming gender identity, and the difference between sex and gender.

A book that I keep on my desk in arm’s reach as I teach acting, Camp studies and creativity in times of crisis! Muñoz’s theory of disidentification looks at how artists outside of the sexual and racial mainstream negotiate and resist majority culture through the transformation of works which exclude, stereotype or otherwise hurt.

This is the first text on queer theory I ever read! And I still come back to it in my research and for creating activities within the classroom. A close deep-dive into the transformative power of childishness, the bumbling interplay of high and low art, Halberstam’s book offers failure as a tool for measuring creative and community-based ways of being and performing in the world.

Dr. Khubchandani and LaWhore Vagistan PhD have taught me more about queer pedagogy by simply being a student in their classroom at Tufts University than I have from teaching students myself. While you may never have the privilege to take a class with Kareem Khubchandani (or LaWhore), this article offers a look into the potential of using performance to teach performance. “Lessons in drag” transform the classroom into inclusive environments for students’ gender identities and expressions, show that Butler’s theory of performativity does not stop at clothing, but includes “bodily comportment and kinesthetics,” and reveal that racialized and gendered bodies of educators can be mobilized into fierce dialogue with course materials, artists, and theoretical texts.

Pryor’s work is a blueprint for discussing slippages of normative time in and around performance worlds and contemporary art.

Especially in a pandemic moment, I feel that this is a vital read for artists attempting to disrupt notions of live performance beyond theatre’s boundaries, hegemonic modes of knowing and memory, and time itself.

These resources are brought to the theatre world through the fabulous work of transgender activists and artists in New England via StageSource! Though, this ongoing project for equity, parity, and inclusion for all genders in amateur, educational, and professional theater cannot be limited to one community. Theatre is an overwhelmingly cisgender space, and gender inclusive terminology and gender neutral accommodations in rehearsal spaces are just the beginning for the expansion of safer art-making environments for trans theatre practitioners.

A meditative and thorough call-to-action and firsthand account of a nonbinary actor encountering the structures of the binarized theatre world in our present moment! K. Woodzick offers an overview of practices and resources for nonbinary actors traversing the scene. I recommend reading this piece after watching the videos and reading the guides provided by the Gender Explosion Initiative above!