Kate Bredeson
Professor of Theatre
Theatre Department
Division of the Arts
Kate Bredeson (she/her) is a theatre historian, a director, and a dramaturg. Her project as a scholar is to research, write about, and practice the ways in which theatre can be a tool for radical activism and protest. Her first book Occupying the Stage: the Theater of May ’68 (Northwestern, 2018) was finalist for the George Freedley Prize. She is currently at work on editing the lifetime diaries of anarchist Jewish theatre director Judith Malina. Kate’s research has been supported by fellowships including a Fulbright; grants from the Mellon and Killam Foundations, and the NEH; and residencies at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France; Tao House in Danville, California; Caldera in Sisters, Oregon; the Maison Dora Maar in Ménerbes, France; and the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy. Kate regularly presents at national and international conferences, and has published essays in journals and books including PAJ, Theatre Journal, TDR, Theater, and Postdramatic Theatre and Form (Bloomsbury, 2019) and The Sixties, Center Stage: Mainstream and Popular Performances in a Turbulent Decade (Michigan, 2017). The relationship between theatre and society is also the focus of her teaching. At Reed, Kate teaches classes including Theatre History I, II, and III; Gender and Theatre; Playwriting; Directing; and Junior Seminar; she frequently directs stage productions featuring students. Kate is a professional dramaturg, and a two-time winner of major prizes from the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. In Portland, she works as dramaturg with choreographer Tahni Holt. Before coming to Reed in 2009, Kate was the Resident Dramaturg at the Court Theatre in Chicago and Lecturer at the University of Chicago. Kate holds an MFA and a doctorate in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama.