Twardowski

WEBSITE(S)| Diluvial Houston Initiative | Rice Sustainability Institute | Rice Theatre Program

Weston Twardowski is a performance scholar and artist whose research investigates how we survive in precarious places. Dr. Twardowski holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Theatre and Drama from Northwestern University and is currently writing a monograph that focuses on the role of performance in community recovery and urban adaptation in post-Katrina New Orleans. Dr. Twardowski’s research has been published by TDR: The Drama Review, Performance Research, Ecumenica, and the Annals of Political Science. His performance and book reviews have appeared in Theatre Journal and Theatre History Studies.

Passionate about transdisciplinary approaches in both art and research, Dr. Twardowski is an expert in community engagement and collaborative research design. Through the Diluvial Houston Arts Incubator, an environmental arts initiative he developed at Rice University, he has helped to create conversations across disciplinary and geographic boundaries in Houston and New Orleans. At Northwestern University, he worked on a National Science Foundation Civic Grant building partnerships with Objibwe Tribes throughout the Midwest. At Rice, he is deeply invested in fostering partnerships with non-profit organizations and community groups to develop community-oriented research and educational programs that directly serve the Greater Houston community. With a grant from the Humanities Research Center, he formed the Indigenous Studies Working Group at Rice in 2022.

Dr. Twardowski regularly directs and dramaturges for professional theatre companies, including the company he cofounded, Third Culture Theatre (TCT) in Los Angeles, where he served as Literary Manager from 2016-2022. He is dedicated to new play development and devised and produced TCT’s first new play development series: Nexus Festival. He is a judge for and organizer of the national new play festival Earth Matters on Stage. He regularly mentors emerging playwrights on their work and is passionate about contemporary playwrights who address major social and political questions. As a director, he has worked across professional and academic theatre on titles as diverse as All My Sons, Romeo and Juliet, The Tragic Ecstasy of Girlhood, and Seussical the Musical. 

Research Areas

Theatre and Performance Studies; Environmental Humanities; Southern US Culture and Politics; Placemaking and Urbanism; Race; Community Engaged Activism and Art

Education

Ph.D., Interdisciplinary Theatre and Drama, Northwestern University

M.A., Theatre Studies, University of Houston

B.A., History, Louisiana State University

B.A., Theatre, Louisiana State University

Body

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