About
Dr. Janna Segal is the Director of Graduate Studies and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in theatre history, literature, and theory; Shakespeare and Shakespearean adaptation; American feminist theatre; and dramaturgy. She received her Ph.D. in Drama and Theatre from the UC Irvine/UC San Diego joint doctoral program; her MA in Theatre from California State University, Northridge; and her BA in Theater Arts from UC Santa Cruz. Prior to joining the UofL faculty, Dr. Segal was an Assistant Professor in the Theatre Department and in the MLitt/MFA Shakespeare and Performance program at Mary Baldwin College, and an IHUM Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University. She has also taught theatre history, literature and theory, Shakespeare, Chicanx theatre and film, and acting at UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and California State University, Northridge.
Dr. Segal has published single and co-authored works on Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Henry V, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, Taming of the Shrew, and Romeo and Juliet; Dekker and Middleton’s The Roaring Girl; Fo and Rame’s Elisabetta; Chekhov’s Three Sisters; and Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Her scholarly work has appeared in such journals as Review: The Journal of Dramaturgy, SDC Journal, JEMCS, Shakespeare, and Early Modern Literary Studies, as well as in numerous anthologies, including Playing Shakespeare’s Monarchs and Madmen (Peter Lang, 2020), How to Teach a Play (Bloomsbury, 2020), Playing Shakespeare’s Villains (Peter Lang, 2019), and Performances at Court in Shakespeare’s Era (Cambridge UP, 2019).
Dr. Segal is also a freelance dramaturg whose production work includes Shakespeare, adaptations, TYA, contemporary theatre, and new plays in development. Her co-adaptation with Idris Goodwin of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings premiered at the New York City Children’s Theatre in Spring 2022. Other adaptations include [Re]Fashion, co-adapted with Ari Calvano (UofL); Taming of the Shrew, co-adapted with Ari Calvano (UofL); Romeo and Juliet (Commonwealth Theatre Center); and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Ball State University). Recent Louisville-area dramaturgy credits include DragonSoul Offline, Reframe, The Right Shoes, and Monster of Mine for StageOne Family Theatre; and Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, and A Streetcar Named Desire for Commonwealth Theatre Center. She is the Resident Dramaturg of the Comparative Drama Conference (CDC), for which she dramaturgs two to three new plays a year, and a dramaturg for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s (ATHE) annual New Play Development Workshop. At UofL, she has dramaturged Baltimore, Eurydice, The Master and Margarita, The Taming of the Shrew, Fires in the Mirror, [Re]Fashion, Love Among the Ruins, Twelfth Night, and Blood at the Root. Dr. Segal is a member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA), is the Conference Planner for Playwrights and Creative Teams (PACT) at ATHE, and she serves on the Board of the Comparative Drama Conference.