Faculty and Staff

Biography

A theatre artist and scholar, Julia Listengarten has worked professionally in New York City with various experimental theatre companies and is currently Professor of Theatre, Artistic Director, and Coordinator of Graduate Studies at the University of Central Florida. Her research interests include avant-garde theatre, contemporary scenographic practice, and performances of national identity. Her translation of Christmas at the Ivanovs' (with Karin Coonrod) premiered off-Broadway at Classic Stage Company and was included in Theater of the Avant-Garde, 1890-1950. Among her directing credits are Bernarda Alba, Seminar, Cloud 9, Marisol, Eurydice, The Burial at Thebes, Gem of the Ocean, Vinegar Tom, and The Baltimore Waltz, and she is the recipient of many meritorious achievement awards in directing from the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. 

Her books include Russian Tragifarce: Its Cultural and Political Roots (Susquehanna UP, 2000), Theater of the Avant-Garde, 1950-2000 (with Knopf; Yale UP, 2011), Playing with Theory in Theatre Practice (with Alrutz and Wood; Palgrave, 2012),  Modern American Drama: Playwriting 2000-2009, Voices, Documents, New Interpretations ( with Rosenthal; Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018), Cambridge Companion to American Theatre Since 1945 (with Di Benedetto; Cambridge UP, 2021), and Performing Arousal: Precarious Bodies and Frames of Representation (with Meeerzon; Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022). She has contributed to many edited theatre collections and her articles have been published in Recherches Semiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry, SCENE, Translation Perspectives, Ecumenica Journal of Theatre and Performance, and Slavic and East European Performance, among others.  She has recently co-edited the 8 volume series Decades of Modern American Drama: Playwriting from the 1930s to 2009 and served as journal editor of Stanislavski Studies: Practice, Legacy and Contemporary Theater .

Dr. Listengarten is the recipient of many University of Central Florida awards including the prestigious Luminary Award 2022, The Pegasus Professor Award 2020, 2022-2023 and 2018-2019 Pabst Steinmetz Innovation Awards in Arts & Wellness, the 2019 University Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award and the 2019 Women of Distinction Award in Creative Entrepreneurship.

Education

• Ph.D. in Theatre Studies from University of Michigan (1996)

Research Interests

contemporary and avant-garde theatre practices, performance and identity politics, performance as social practice. 

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Selected Publications

Books

• Visual and Performing Arts Collaborations in Higher Education: Transdisciplinary Practices (with Keri Watson), Palgrave Macmillan.
• (with Cindy Rosenthal) Decades of Modern American Playwriting: the 2000s; Voices, Documents, New Interpretations. Methuen Drama.

Edited Collections

• Performing Arousal: Precarious Bodies and Frames of Representation (with Yana Meerzon). Bloomsbury Methuen Publishing

• The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre Since 1945. (with Stephen Di Benedetto). Cambridge University Press, 2021.
• Decades of Modern American Playwriting: 1930-2009. 8 volume series. Co-edited with Brenda Murphy. Methuen Drama/Bloomsbury

Articles/Essays

• "Il teatro statunitense nel Duemila: temi, prospettive, tendenze." Ácoma: Rivista internazionale di Studi Nordamericani N. 20 Nuova Serie, Primavera-Estate 2021 - Anno XXVII.

• “In Search of New Authenticity in Staging Brecht’s Good Woman of Setzuan”

  (with Vandy Wood, and Megan Alrutz). Theatre Arts Journal: Studies in Scenography and Performance, Vol. 5, 1 (2020): 76-86.

• “Building Affective Solidarity and Creating Healthier Communities through the Arts:Interactions, Elaborations, and Interventions in Multiple Contexts” (with Keri Watson andKate Kilpatrick). The International Journal of Arts Education, Volume 14: 4 (2019), https://artsinsociety.com.
• “Staging representations: Reflections on performing activism in a visual art and theatre collaboration” (with Keri Watson). SCENE6.1 (2019): 41-62.
• (with Lyubov Zabolotskaya Weidner), "Vasiliev Methodology: Situational and Ludo Structures.” In Stanislavski Studies: Practice, Legacy and Contemporary Theater. 5.1: 13-20.   

Book Sections/Chapters

• “When actors become birds: Re-envisioning pedagogical frameworks in the rehearsal space” (with Christopher Niess), in Stanislavsky and Pedagogy. Ed. Stefan Aquilina, Bloomsbury Publishing

• Forthcoming

  Anton Chekhov and Modern Theatre: Resonances and Intersections,” in Chekhov

  in Context. Ed. Yuri Currigan. Cambridge University Press, 2022, 205-212.

• “Pussy Riot’s Radical Acts: Transgressive Bodies in Performance and the

  Ghosting of the Russian Avant-Garde,” in Performing Arousal: Precarious Bodies and

  Frames of Representation. Eds. Julia Listengarten and Yana Meerzon. Drama Bloomsbury

  Publishing, 2022, 131-145

•  “Introduction to Becky Shaw.” Gina Gionfriddo, Becky Shaw, Methuen Drama, 2020, v-xvi.
• “Affecting the Lives of ‘Others’: The Journey of Albee’s Plays in the Soviet Union.” Edward Albee as Theatricla and Dramatic Innovator. Ed. David Crespy and Linloln Klonkle. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2019, 147-166.
• "Russian Stage Design and Theatrical Avant-Garde.” Scenography. Ed. Arnold Aronson. Routledge,  385-401. 

Creative Publications

• “Puppets, Kites, and the Swirling Waters: Convergent Boundaries in a Site-Specific  Performance.” SCENE 5:2. 

Awards

 

Pabst Steinmetz Innovation Arts & Wellness Award (2023)

Research Incentive Award (RIA) (2023), University of Central Florida

Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) (2023), University of Central Florida

Luminary Award (2022), University of Central Florida

Pegasus Professor (2020), University of Central Florida

NEA Big Read (2023)

NEA Big Read (2020)

NEA Big Read (2019)

NEA Big Read (2018)

NEA Big Read (2017)

Women of Distinction Award (2019), University of Central Florida

Excellence in Graduate Teaching (2019), University of Central Florida

Pabst Steinmetz Innovation Arts & Wellness Award (2018)

Research Incentive Award (RIA) (2018), University of Central Florida

Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) (2018), University of Central Florida

Scroll & Quill Society (2017), University of Central Florida

Excellence in Directing (2022), Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival

Excellence in Directing (2019), Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival

Excellence in Directing (2018), Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival

Excellence in Directing (2017), Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival

Excellence in Directing (2016), Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival

Excellence in Directing (2014), Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival

Information Fluency Award (2013), University of Central Florida

Excellence in Graduate Teaching (2012), University of Central Florida

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Courses

• Spring 2026
• Fall 2025
• Summer 2025
• Spring 2025
• Fall 2024
• Summer 2024
• Spring 2024
• Fall 2023
• Summer 2023