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PMA Ph.D. candidate Andy Colpitts has published an article called “On The Road to Hell/Broadway: The Rural to Urban Development of Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown" in the inaugural issue of MusicTheatreDance.
Heading into Night, a play directed and co-devised by PMA Associate Professor Beth F. Milles has received a glowing review during its stop at the Durham Fringe Festival. The project is co-devised and performed by renowned Cirque du Soleil clown Daniel Passer, and is currently on tour in Europe. Several PMA alums are performing with Passer, including Chandler Waggoner ’15 in Durham and Tess Lovell ’25 in Edinburgh. Taylor Bazos ’23, the Assistant Director for the Los Angeles production will produce the play.
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for upcoming audition! We're casting roles for "I WANT A COUNTRY," a play by Andreas Flourakis, translated by Eleni Drivas. We're pleased to welcome Sam Buggeln, Artistic and Executive Director of the Cherry Arts, as our director for this production. Auditions will be held on Tuesday, September 2, from 5pm to 9am in the Flex Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. All Cornell students, faculty, and staff are welcome to participate. Secure your audition slot at https://bit.ly/m/PMA-Auditions-IWAC. Performances will take place on October 24, 25, 31, and November 1. We look forward to seeing you at auditions!
PMA Ph.D. Student Isabel Padilla Carlo has published an article called “Rican(actments): Mourning, Kinship, and Existential Waiting in Natalia Lassalle-Morillo’s En Parábola/Conversations on Tragedy (2024)" in Centro’s blog RicanWritings.
PMA Alum Sara Chiang-Pistono '21 is the Associate Producer for a new film called Dateless to Dangerous: My Son's Secret Life, which premiered June 21 on Lifetime and is available to stream on Amazon Prime and Hulu+.
Find out your role in PMA's vibrant projects and collaborations! Mark your calendar for Projects & Participation Kick-off on Wednesday, August 27 at 7:30 p.m. in the Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
It's that time of the semester again... Festival 24! Festival 24 is a once-per-semester festival where Cornell students write, direct, and perform a compilation of 15-minute plays and films all within 24 hours!
The Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts is pleased to invite students to explore our facilities during our upcoming Open House Tours on Thursday, August 21, 2025. If you're curious about performing and media arts at Cornell, this is your perfect opportunity to discover the spaces where creativity flourishes.
Assistant Professor of the Practice Danielle Russo Advances Creative Research During Prestigious Kaatsbaan Cultural Park Residency
PMA Professor David Feldshuh taught eighty executives from national food and distribution companies in his “Leadership Presence: Enjoying the Performance” workshop. The session was part of a five-day Food Executive Program (FEP) conference that ran from July 13-18, sponsored by the Dyson-eCornell Food Industry Management Program.
PMA Ph.D. Alum Megan Shea ’09 has written a new book called Tragic Resistance: Feminist Agency in Performance. The book, published by Routledge in January, analyzes playwrights, directors, and performers who shatter gender norms to gain agency within the patriarchal institutions restricting them.
Professor Samantha Sheppard: “Warner’s legacy is both rooted in his foundational and very funny role within a groundbreaking moment in television history and his commitment to moving beyond the character and show that turned him into a beloved household name."
This month’s featured titles include a look at the world’s first advice column, self-help for parents, and a scholarly book on Venezuela.
PMA Assistant Professor of the Practice Danielle Russo has been selected for a 2025/2026 Faculty Fellowship in Engaged Learning at Cornell University, on behalf of the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement. Faculty fellows cultivate a learning community of engaged faculty leaders committed to integrating principles and practices of engagement in our research and teaching; supporting aspirations to help heal the world; and advancing community-engaged learning and research with colleagues, partners, and students.
PhD candidate Jessie Taieun Yoon has published an article in the journal Feral Feminisms’ special issue on Excess, titled “Quietly Excessive: The Tense Interplay of Aesthetic Excess and Affective Absence in Representations of Asian Diasporic Femininities.” In this article, Yoon proposes what they call ‘quiet excess’ to account for Asian diasporic femininities’ ambivalence.
PMA Assistant Professor Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz was selected for a residency at The MilkBar, an experimental arts center in Richmond, California. Aldape Muñoz was in residence from June 28 to July 7.
This fall, PMA Alum Joshua Bastian Cole-Kurz ‘22 will be joining Hobart and William Smith Colleges as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectional Justice.
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The professorships are made possible because of gifts from alumni, parents and friends.
PMA Ph.D. Student Isabel Padilla Carlo has written a chapter for the forthcoming anthology Porque Estamos Aquí: Puerto Rican Feminisms Against Empire. Her chapter is titled “Léeme la cuerpa: Queer Laziness and the Body Politics of El perreo combativo” and includes a series of interviews with Karla Claudio-Betancourt and DJ Perra Mística. Porque Estamos Aquí is edited by Pabón-Colón Jessica Nydia and will be published in November by the Feminist Press at CUNY.
PMA Associate Professor Beth F. Milles’ has been invited to participate in the Tofte Lake Center Residency in Ely, Minnesota in June to collaborate with playwright Carson Kreitzer on a new work entitled "TRASH: A circumnavigation."
PMA Associate Professor Beth F. Milles’ play Heading into Night will be embarking on a European tour, with performances in Durham, England from July 23-25, Edinburgh, Scotland from August 11-17, and Madrid, Spain on July 30. Milles will participate on behalf of the play in the Walking the Talk for Dementia conference in Santiago de Compostela, Spain on August 25-September 1. The play has also completed interactive workshops with Ithaca's Hospicare and Beechtree Nursing Home, supported by a Cornell Einhorn Grant.
This fall, PMA Alum Victoria Pihl Sørensen ‘25 will be joining the University of Colorado Boulder as Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Media Studies.
PMA Ph.D. Student Isabel Padilla Carlo has received a Caribbean Graduate Research Grant through Cornell’s Einaudi Center for International Studies. The Caribbean Graduate Research Grants offer opportunities for graduate students conducting research on Caribbean topics. The Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program offers funding to conduct research that requires students to travel to the Caribbean or to libraries, archives, or other sites outside the Caribbean that hold collections or resources for the study of the Caribbean and its diasporas.
PMA Professor Nick Salvato has been appointed the Frederic J. Whiton Professor of Liberal Studies by the Board of Trustees.
Projects spanned topics from Confederate cemeteries to Korean textiles.
Rejoice Abutsa, a Ph.D. candidate in Performing and Media Arts, is the winner of a 2024 Gertrude Spencer Prize for Students and Instructors at Cornell University. She is awarded this prize for her joint work with student Itunu Adejare, called "Igwebuike: The Idea of Sisterhood and Women's Narratives in Nollywood.” The prize recognizes excellence in writing and is awarded by the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines.
PMA Professors J. Ellen Gainor, Aoise Stratford, Kristen Warner, and Danielle Russo participated in the Smart is Strong Foundation spring conference on the theme of "Feminism in the Arts & Media," as part of International Women's Day.
Roger Moseley, associate professor of music, will begin in the new role July 1.
Awardees were recognized for the significant impacts they have made to advance access, engagement and belonging through their service and leadership.
Among those being recognized for exceptional teaching and mentorship this year are faculty members Begüm Adalet, Claudia Verhoeven, and Marcelo Aguiar.
Hira Mahmood, a PMA Ph.D. student, has won a 2025 Russell Family Teaching Award in Performing and Media Arts. Mahmood’s research focus includes aesthetics, affect (shame, disgust, embarrassment), psychoanalysis (abjection, desire, language), visual and material cultures, and subjectivity. In Fall 2025, she will be teaching the course PMA 1175: FWS: Hell is a Teenage Girl: Terror and Turmoil of Girlhood in Horror Films.
Tess Lovell is majoring in English and performing and media arts.
Davis Ouriel is majoring in performing and media arts & feminist, gender and sexuality studies
Visiting Lecturer Carolyn Michelle Smith recently had the U.S. premiere of her film, “Familiar Touch” at the New Directors/New Films Film Festival at Lincoln Center in early April. The film stars Kathleen Chalfant, Carolyn Michelle, H. John Benjamin, Andy McQueen, and London Garcia. It was written and directed by Sarah Friedland.
In this episode, we met with Bixby Piccolo Hill to discuss his work on Milkshake Kiss, the premier film project for PMA Studios. PMA Studios is a new collaboration of students, faculty, staff and guest artists to write, produce and direct professional movies.
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for the Student Film Screening, on Friday, May 9, at 5:00 p.m., in the Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. The Student Film Screening will feature unique, empathetic, and collaborative works from students in PMA 3570: Film and Video Production I and PMA 1410: Media Production Laboratory.
Cornell Music & Sound Studies Ph.D. Candidate Nic Vigilante has won the 2025 Marvin Carlson Award for Best Student Essay for Theatre or Performance for their essay “Salty, Sweet, and Spicy: Ingestion and Immersion in Queer Asian American Nightlife.”
PMA Podcast Episode 68 - Top of My School w/Katherine Lynn-Rose
Join PMA for Sub-Basement Docs on Thursday, May 8, at 6:30 p.m. in the Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. This showcase of student films from Advanced Documentary Production (ANTHR/PMA 4401/7401) will feature “Women’s Court” by Can Cao, “The Milking Parlor” by Gus Dupin, and “Radical Ritual” by Jacob Berman. The student directors will participate in a Q&A session following the event. Free and open to the public. First come, first served.
Join PMA for the Honors Thesis Screening on Thursday, May 8, at 5:00 p.m. in the Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. This exciting showcase of honors film projects by the Cornell Senior Class will feature “Top of My School” by Katherine Lynn-Rose ‘25. Experience outstanding storytelling and gain insight directly from the student director during a Q&A session following the event. Free and open to the public. Tickets are not required.
A new play called Rift, or White Lies features scenic design by PMA Visiting Associate Professor Nick Embree. Written by Gabriel Jason Dean and directed by Seth Rozin, Rift, or White Lies opened on April 4 at the InterAct Theatre Company’s Drake Proscenium Theater in Philadelphia and will run until April 27.
Voices of Our Nations Arts (VONA), a foundation recognized as "the premier multi-genre workshop for BIPOC Writers," has selected PMA/LSP Associate Professor Karen Jaime as a 2025 VONA Fellow. As a Fellow, Jaime will be participating in their summer poetry workshop.
PMA/LSP Associate Professor Karen Jaime was recently invited to the University of Miami's Center for the Humanities to discuss her research during a luncheon and public lecture on March 27, organized by the Queer Studies Interdisciplinary Research Group.
PMA Professor J. Ellen Gainor has been invited as a guest speaker for Syracuse University’s Goldring Arts, Style, and Culture Journalism Program on April 23. She will discuss the history of female theatre critics, as reflected in her co-edited volume, The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatre Theory & Dramatic Criticism, and also be speaking about contemporary critics who are recent winners of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.
PMA Assistant Professor Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz spoke at the University of Pittsburgh’s Latinx Connect Conference on Friday, April 4. Aldape Muñoz was part of a panel of leading critical dance studies scholars that included Jade Power Sotomayor, Irvin Gonzalez, and Manuel Cuellar.
PMA Department Chair Samantha Noelle Sheppard has won the 2025 Faculty Champion Award for Advanced Career Faculty, from the Graduate School Office of Inclusion & Student Engagement. The award ceremony will take place on Wednesday, May 14 from 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM at the Graduate Diversity and Inclusion Award and Recognition Celebration in G10 Biotech.
The documentary Human Again, created by PMA Professor Bruce Levitt, will screen at Cinemapolis on Sunday, April 27 at 2:30 p.m. The film, which earned Best Documentary Feature at the International Independent Film Awards, follows the five original founders of the Phoenix Players Theatre Group (PPTG) as they strive to reconnect with their repressed humanity at a maximum-security prison in Auburn, NY.
On April 25, seven Society for the Humanities’ Fellows will present their projects in progress during the annual Spring Fellows’ conference, highlighting the various ways that the theme of silence has been explored –
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for a screening of Milkshake Kiss presented by PMA Studios, on Friday, May 2, at 5:00 pm, in the Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
The culmination of a year-long study of “New/Futurism: Installation, Intermedia, Interactive & Immersive Dance,” the April 25-26 performance also features the work of influential choreographer Merce Cunningham and highlights collaboration among art forms.