Research Interests
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Adaptation
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Applied Theatre with Youth
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Applied Theatre as Research
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Critical Pedagogy
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Devising
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Physical Theatre
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Rural Studies
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Women in Theatre
Publications
Neumann, Aubrey Helene. “Transitioning Out of the Role of Trusted Adult in Applied Theatre with Youth: Or How I Found Myself in Need of a Time Machine.” Youth Theatre Journal (2021): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08929092.2021.1891167.
Neumann, Aubrey Helene. “A Mother’s Image: Portraits of Ellen Terry by Edward Gordon Craig.” Texas Theatre Journal 16, no. 1 (2019): 48-62.
Neumann, Aubrey Helene. “Book Review: Culture is the Body: the Theatre Writings of Tadashi Suzuki.” New England Theatre Journal 28, no. 1 (2017): 132-134.
Neumann, Aubrey Helene. "Book Review: Theatre and Adaptation: Return, Rewrite, Repeat." Texas Theatre Journal 13, no. 1 (2017): 114-15.
Conference Presentations
2020* American Society for Theatre Research. New Repetitions: Towards an Intersectional Rehearsal Pedagogy. Working Group
Participant.
2020* Association of Theatre and Higher Education Conference. “No Breaking People, Things…or School Rules:
“Appropriateness” in Community-Based Theatre with Youth.”
2020 Association of Theatre and Higher Education Conference. “Theatre and Social Change (TASC) Focus Group Debut Panel.”
Moderator.
2020 Mid-America Theatre Conference. “Hicks, Hillbillies, and Heterogeneity: Characterizing the Rural Through Applied Theatre
with Youth.”
2020 Reclaiming the Stage: An Interdisciplinary Arts Colloquium. “All’s Fair in Art and War: Battles for Theatre in Contemporary
Hungary (Rebroadcast).”
2019 Association of Theatre in Higher Education Conference. “‘See You Later, Facilitator’: Transitioning Out of the Role of Lead
Devisor.”
2019 Mid-America Theatre Conference. “‘When are We Gonna Act?’ Reinventing the Power Dynamic Between Adult Facilitators
and Teen Participants.”
2019 Bursting the Silos: An Interdisciplinary Arts Colloquium – Graduate Student Theatre Syndicate. “What You Don’t Know Can
Hurt: Learning to Teach Social Diversity in the Classroom.”
2018 Association of Theatre Movement Educators Pre-Conference. “Think Mime? Think Again!” Gallery Walk.
2018 Show Your Work: An Exploratory Colloquium – Graduate Student Theatre Syndicate. “Painting the Invisible World: The
Visual Art of Marcel Marceau.”
2017 Mid-America Theatre Conference. “All’s Fair in Love and Devising: Transformation in Early Feminist Performances.”
2017 Inquiry Colloquium – Graduate Student Theatre Syndicate. “Teaching Empowerment: Participatory Theatre for Social
Change in the Classroom.”
*Cancelled or postponed due to complications pertaining to COVID
Current Research Excerpt: "Co-Creating Capital: Rural Youth, Stigma, and Applied Theatre Practice "
The plight of rural youth has been well chronicled, particularly in rural education scholarship. In “Learning to Be Rural: Identity Lessons from History, Schooling, and the U.S. Corporate Media” (2010), Paul Theobald and Kathy Wood trace adverse rural caricatures – or stereotypes – from colonial America through to the twenty-first century in order to explain disengagement among today’s rural youth. Those who accept the message that rural is less than urban or suburban, often leave the area, spatially disengaging from their rural communities. Others come to see themselves as “nonparticipants in the American experience,” disengaging from the nation more broadly – an act which I believe contributes to the politics of resentment detailed by Katherine J. Cramer and explored later in this dissertation.[i][ii]
The symbolic nature of theatre makes it ideally suited to interrupt these negative depictions, as Jo Robinson argues in Theatre and the Rural (2016). While Robinson primarily concerns herself with rural representations as they relate to audience reception, I contend that applied theatre workshops also provide participants with the opportunity to subvert or embrace stereotypes of the rural.[iii] Drawing on sociology and rural studies, as well as my own experience facilitating an applied theatre workshop in rural Wisconsin, I observe that some rural youth embrace discrediting rural stereotypes as a method of stigma management, which in turn yields mixed results. While performances of pride may promote self-acceptance and openness leading to greater well-being, such performances can also be received poorly by non-rural residents leading to negative interactions and further disengagement. Better understanding of these performances of pride provides the groundwork for future studies of the impact of applied theatre with rural youth.
[i] Paul Theobald and Kathy Wood, “Learning to Be Rural: Identity Lessons from History, Schooling, and the U.S. Corporate Media,” in Rural Education in the Twenty- First Century: Identity, Place, and Community in a Globalizing World, eds. Kai A. Schafft and Alecia Youngblood Jackson (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 32.
[ii] Katherine J. Cramer, The Politics of Resentment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 5-6.
[iii] Jo Robinson, Theatre and the Rural (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).