Associate Professor, Penn State School of Theatre

A new works dramaturg in dance and theatre, Jeanmarie Higgins publishes widely on the intersection of theory and practice—including essays about her studio work with dance trio AGA Collaborative, Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, and the Martha Graham Dance Company. Her scholarly research addresses domestic space in contemporary drama and performance in the works of such artists as Diana Szeinblum, Wallace Shawn, Simon Stephens, and Pat Graney.  

Jeanmarie is on the editorial board for Etudes, an online journal in theatre and performances studies for emerging scholars. She also serves as Member at Large for the Theory & Criticism Focus Group for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), and is an active member in ATHE’s American Theatre and Drama Society. In 2013, she was awarded the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) Collaborative Research Award with Dr. Lisa Jackson-Schebetta at the University of Pittsburgh.  

Before joining Penn State in 2017, Jeanmarie taught at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where she developed a team-based BA dramaturgy program. Prior to UNC, Jeanmarie taught playwriting, critical theory, and post-colonial studies at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in Theatre History, Theory, & Criticism from the University of Washington.