Faculty & Staff
Kate Bredeson
she/her
Theatre history, theatre theory, dramaturgy, playwriting, directing, gender and theatre.
B.A. 1998, Macalester College
M.F.A. 2002, D.F.A. 2006 Yale School of Drama
Reed College 2009-.
(503) 459-4639 | kbredeso@reed.edu
Website
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 is published by Northwestern University Press (2018; finalist, George Freedley Award). Her translation, with Thalia Wolff, of the Théâtre de l'Aquarium's 1968 play The Inheritor will be published by Northwestern in Fall 2024. Her multi-volume book The Diaries of Judith Malina will also be published by Northwestern. Kate has earned fellowships and awards including a Beinecke Visiting Research Fellowship at Yale; a Fulbright in Paris; residencies at Loghaven (Tennessee), Mission Street Arts (New Mexico), La Maison Dora Maar in Ménerbes (France), the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio (Italy), the Camargo Foundation in Cassis (France), Caldera (Oregon), Playa (Oregon), Tao House (California), and the New York Mills Artist Residency (Minnesota); fellowships from the New York Public Library, Killam Foundation, Mellon Foundation, American Philosophical Society, the Institut Français de Washington, and the American Society for Theatre Research; and a grant from the Furthermore Foundation. She is the recipient of a 2017 NEH summer stipend. She is an alum of the Mellon Summer School of Theatre and Performance Research at Harvard University and the Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents. Kate regularly presents at national and international conferences and has published her writing in Theatre Journal, TDR, Theater Topics, Theatre Survey, Theater, Review: the Journal of Dramaturgy, Theatre Symposium, Modern and Contemporary France, The Tennessee Williams Literary Journal, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, and Time Out Paris. She has essays in the books The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism (Routledge, 2023), Postdramatic Theatre and Form (Bloomsbury, 2019), The Sixties, Center Stage: Mainstream and Popular Performances in a Turbulent Decade (Michigan, 2017), The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy (Routledge, 2014), International Women Stage Directors (U. Illinois, 2013), and May 68: Rethinking France's Last Revolution (Palgrave, 2011). She is currently the Vice President for Awards for the American Society for Theatre Research; she has previously served on the organization’s executive committee. As a dramaturg, she has collaborated with the Court Theater in Chicago (Resident Dramaturg 2008-09), Guthrie Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Yale Cabaret, Portland Playhouse, and since 2016 has been working with choreographer Tahni Holt. Kate is a winner of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) 2017 Bly Fellowship, and the 2011 LMDA residency grant. She was on the founding board for Portland's Risk/Reward and served from 2012-2024. Kate has taught at the University of Chicago, Dalhousie University, Yale University, and has been Visiting Associate Professor of Playwriting in the Hollins University MFA Playwriting program. Kate holds an MFA and a doctorate in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama.
Reed Magazine article: "The Show Must Go On: With Rhinoceros, Theatre Department rethinks stagecraft in the era of social distancing."
Reed Magazine article: "Constructing Gender: A Reed Theatre class explores the relationship between gender and performance--on stage and off"
Reed Magazine article: "Prof Wins Award to Work on Radical Theatre"
Reed Magazine article: "Taking Off the Gloves: Prof. Kate Bredeson challenges students to make theatre that is both real and unreal."