A new works dramaturg in dance and theatre, Jeanmarie Higgins publishes and presents widely on the intersection of performance theory and practice. Her scholarly research addresses domestic space in contemporary drama and performance in the works of such artists as Akropolis Performance Lab, Pat Graney, Wallace Shawn, and Annie Baker. Her forthcoming chapter in Theatre and the Macabre (University of Wales Press) examines stage space, repetition, and disappearance in Argentinian director Diana Szeinblum’s, Alaska. Her edited collection, Teaching Critical Performance Theory in Today’s Theatre Classroom, Studio and Communities (Routledge, 2020), offers teaching strategies for professors and artist-scholars across performance, design and technology, applied theatre, and theatre studies disciplines. Jeanmarie has given talks and master classes in critical performance theory and dance dramaturgy at the University of Pittsburgh Humanities Center, the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC, and the University of Wisconsin Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies program.

Jeanmarie is on the editorial board for Etudes, an online journal in theatre and performances studies for emerging scholars. She also serves as the pre-conference planner for the Theory & Criticism Focus Group for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), and is an active member in ATHE’s American Theatre and Drama Society. In 2013, she was awarded the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) Collaborative Research Award with Dr. Lisa Jackson-Schebetta. Before joining Penn State in 2017, Jeanmarie taught at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where she developed a team-based BA dramaturgy program. Prior to UNC, Jeanmarie taught playwriting, critical theory, and post-colonial studies at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. She holds a BA in Theatre Studies from Drew University, an MFA in Playwriting from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in Theatre History, Theory, & Criticism from the University of Washington.