Doctoral Projects in Progress in Theatre Arts, 2007

This is the fifty-fifth annual report of dissertations in progress in theatre arts in the United States. The entries contained in this report were solicited from those universities offering a doctoral degree in areas related to theatre; the completeness and accuracy of the report depend largely on the immense cooperation of those students and faculty members who were kind enough to submit complete and timely information—either by e-mail, regular postal mail, or fax. A future request for information will be mailed in October 2007 for the 2008 edition. Please contact the editor / researcher if an institution is not already receiving the annual call for submissions.

This report lists (in order) the doctoral student's name, dissertation title, university, department affiliation, faculty supervisor, and projected year of completion. Dissertation topics are arranged in two parts: in Part I, topics are listed first geographically and secondarily by time periods; Part II provides additional divisions for those projects that do not fit easily according to geography or time, but conform to the growing areas of contemporary research.

This is my second and last year as editor / researcher for this report; I will be handing over the responsibilities for its continued publication to my associate. I hope that my colleagues around the country will continue to work with him in providing their research information so that the state of our art (and the scope of its interests) can be accurately reported and updated.

We would like to express our sincere appreciation to Texas Tech University's Department of Theatre and Dance and its chair, Professor Fred Christoffel, for sponsoring our research request. We are grateful for the response we received from the theatre community; we are also very committed to presenting the information in a format that best relates the work being done. To this end, my associate will continue to evaluate the categorical system to ensure that next year's dissertations find their appropriate place in this report.