scholar & pedagogue
Dr. Kristyl D. Tift has taught courses in Theatre and Film Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Communication Arts. Her scholarship centers on African American Theatre and Black Performance with an emphasis on identity, representation, and the communal dynamics of underrepresented groups. In her teaching and research, Tift embraces a hybrid style emphasizing the intersections of history, theory, criticism, and culture in performance. She has given guest lectures and performance workshops at Oxford College at Emory University, Brandeis University, the University of Georgia, the University of Florida, Georgia Southern University, the University of Louisville, and the University of Nevada at Reno.
Research Areas: African Diaspora performance, queer-of-color performance, black feminist performance, Theatre for Social Change, Solo Performance, Applied Dramaturgy
Photograph by Pamela Bourland-Davis
Photographs by Kristyl Dawn Tift
Books
A Conditional Embrace: Black Queer Feminism in Performance (The Ohio State University Press, July 30, 2026)
Working books and papers
Solo Drama: process, performance, pedagogy
“Embodied Historical Chaos in Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field” (under review)
“Good Orderly Direction: Mical Whitaker’s East River Players and Theatre South”
Articles
“It Was All a Dream: Shifting DuBoisian Notions in Richard Wesley’s The Talented Tenth.” Journal of American Drama and Theory (accepted for publication, 2026)
“Queering the Politics of Black Respectability in Plays of the Black Revolutionary Theatre.” The Black Theatre Review (tBTR) 1.1 (2022). Read
“Flyin’ High in Flyin’ West: Representing 19th Century African American Women in Performance.” Frontiers, a Journal of Women’s Studies 42.1 (2021): 161-77. Read
“Embodying Intersections: The Performance Poetry of Staceyann Chin and Lenelle Moïse.” New England Theatre Journal 29.1 (2018): 73-92. Read
Book Chapters
“Making Colors: A Black Feminist Experiment in Solo Performance.” In Applied Theatre and Racial Justice: Care, Community, Change (Routledge Press, 2026).
“These Truths Will Go No Further: Exploring Black Women’s ‘Motherwork’ in Contemporary Playmaking.” In M(other) Perspectives: Staging the Maternal in 21st Century Theatre & Performance (Routledge Press, 2023): Read
Book Reviews
“Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry” by Soyica Diggs Colbert. Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2021). Read
"solo/black/woman: scripts, interviews, essays” by E. Patrick Johnson and Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, editors. Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre, and Performance 2.2 (2016): 1-3. Read
“Wandering: Philosophical Performances of Racial and Sexual Freedom” by Sarah J. Cervenak. Theatre Journal 67.4 (2015): 751-52. Read
“Performing Queer Latinidad: dance sexuality, politics” by Ramón H. Rivera-Servera. Theatre Journal, 66. 2 (2014): 311-12.
