La Donna L. Forsgren

Associate Director
Associate Professor
Film, Television, and Theatre

Research Interests

African American theatre and performance; Black feminist theories; Black liberation struggle; Dramaturgy

Related Courses Taught

Collaboration; World Stages II; Performing Blackness: from Othello to Jay-Z; African American Musicals in Theatre, Film, and Television; Black Feminist Drama; Production Dramaturgy; Playwriting

Biography

La Donna L. Forsgren is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre; concurrent faculty in the Gender Studies Program; and affiliate faculty in the Department of Africana Studies. She is the author of "In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement" (NUP 2018) and "Sistuhs in the Struggle: An Oral History of the Black Arts Movement Theatre and Performance" (NUP 2020). She has also published her research on African American theatre history in academic journals, contributed chapters to book collections, and is working on a third book project that explores queer black feminist spectatorship in contemporary musical theatre. She was awarded the American Society for Theatre Research's Oscar G. Brockett Essay Prize for her article, “The Wiz Redux; or Why Queer Black Feminist Spectatorship and Politically Engaged Popular Entertainment Continue to Matter" Theatre Survey 60.3 (2019): 325-354. She serves as Associate Editor for "Theatre Survey" and Vice President/Conference Planner for the Mid-America Theatre Conference.