Erin Stoneking (ers276@cornell.edu) is a dramaturg and doctoral candidate in the Performing and Media Arts department. She holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University. Erin's doctoral thesis, Reenactments: Southern Nostalgia, Race, and the Performance of Memory, explores contemporary embodied encounters with the imagined U.S. Southern past via reenactment practices ranging from Civil War battlefields and plantation tours to lynching protests and live theatre. Her research and teaching interests include dramaturgy, new play development, American drama, dramatic criticism, American studies, Southern studies, Africana studies, and women’s and gender studies.
While completing her dissertation, Erin is working as resident dramaturg and teaching artist with the English Theatre Düsseldorf in Düsseldorf, Germany. Recent stateside projects include Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play in the Schwartz Center (Cornell), the world premiere of Professor David Feldshuh's Dancing with Giants at Illusion Theater (MN), and She Persists with Civic Ensemble (Ithaca, NY). Prior to joining the department, Erin was a freelance dramaturg in New York City (Parenthesis Theater, the CHILDREN’s Theatre Company, Norwyk Theatre, Occam Repertory) and completed artistic apprenticeships with American Opera Projects and New York Theatre Workshop.
Within the Performing and Media Arts department, Erin has served as conference organizer ("Escape from the Archive: Encountering History through Theatre and Performance," 2017), and as vice president (2013–2014, 2014–2015) and president (2015–2016) of the Association of Graduates in Theatre (AGIT).
Erin has developed and taught courses for PMA and Cornell's first-year writing program in theatre and history, U.S. Southern drama, and U.S. Southern cultural studies, and has served as a teaching assistant for courses in contemporary theatre and religion, playwriting, and American musicals.