Overview
Aoise serves both as an Advising Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, and as a lecturer in Performing and Media Arts where she primarily teaches writing. She has a PhD from Cornell, and an MFA from the University of San Francisco. She has written many plays (and other kinds of stories including short films and fiction), and had her work produced throughout the USA and overseas. Her award-winning play “The Unfortunates” was a Time Out NY Critics Pick and is published by TRW. She also works as a dramaturg, helping other playwrights bring their work to the stage. As a scholar, Aoise has published essays about contemporary theatre, women playwrights, and the Gothic and is currently working on a book about Gothic Television. She regularly teaches First Year Writing seminars and loves working with students. She grew up in Australia and spent six years in California before making the move to Ithaca. She feels very lucky to be working with students in the classroom, in the rehearsal room, and as part of the Advising Team.
Research Focus
Research interests include: Postcolonial drama, the Gothic, television, contemporary feminist theatre, dramaturgical practice, and crime narratives.
She has published book reviews in Modern Drama, Theatre Survey and The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism and is a contributor to the textbooks The Art of Theatre Then and Now, and Workshopping Your New Play. As a dramaturg she has written essays for the Shaw Festival on their productions of Dracula (2017), Gaslight (2022) and The Shadow Of A Doubt (2023). Her article “Re-opening Sarah Kane’s Chamber of Horrors,” appears in Modern Drama. Other Essays appear in Monsters in Performance: Essays on the Aesthetics of Disqualification (Routledge), Susan Glaspell and Her Contexts (Forthcoming, CUP), Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (Utah), The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism (Forthcoming, Routledge) and Beyond The Traditional Essay: Increasing Student Agency in A Diverse Classroom (Vernon Press).
Responsibilities
- Academic Advising
- College Orientation Planning
- Study Abroad (students with last name I-M)
In the news
- J. Ellen Gainor wins book award from Theatre Library Association
- Scholars spearhead anthology of women’s theater writing
- Memories, tech intertwine in student play ‘Benchmark’
- Stratford wins essay award from Northeast Modern Language Association
- Salaam promotes value of resilience, faith in MLK Lecture
- First visiting journalist shares world of the NYT with students, faculty
- PMA play reading explores future of climate change
- Play by Cornell faculty performed in London
- New immersive headphone play premieres this month
- Student playwrights and screenwriters honored March 23
- PMA professor pens new holiday tradition
- Escape from the Archive Conference examines relationship between performance & history
