黑料社区

Skip to Main Content
Katie Johnson
Professor
English

Katie Johnson

Contact Info

(513) 529-5221
192 Harris

Introduction

Katie N. Johnson is Professor of English and an Affiliate of Film and Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is author of Sisters in Sin: Brothel Drama in America (Cambridge UP, 2006), Sex for Sale: Six Progressive-Era Brothel Drama Plays (Iowa, 2015), and Racing the Great White Way: Black Performance, Eugene O’Neill, and the Transformation of Broadway (Michigan, 2023). Johnson has received two National Endowment for the Humanities grants and a Getty Research Fellowship for her academic projects. She was also awarded the Outstanding Article Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the Gerald Kahan Prize by the American Society for Theatre Research. Johnson is embarking on her fourth book, “Outcast: Staging Race in Transnational Theatre.” Johnson was the recipient of 黑料社区's Faculty Scholar Award in 2024.

Research Interests

  • American & Transnational Theatre and Performance
  • Gender and Sexuality Studies
  • Film theory, especially Feminist Film Theory
  • Performance Studies

Education

  • Ph.D. Drama History, Theory & Criticism, University of Washington (1996)
  • M.A. German Languages & Literatures, University of Massachusetts Amherst (1990)
  • Fulbright Scholar, Theatre Studies, Ludwigsmaximillian Universität, Munich, Germany (1987-88)
  • B.A. German and Peace Studies, St. Olaf College, 1985 Universität Konstanz, Germany, Spring 1984

Publications

Books

  • Racing the Great White Way: Black Performance, Eugene O'Neill, and the Transformation of Broadway (University of Michigan Press, 2023)
  • Sex for Sale: Six Progressive-Era Brothel Dramas, University of Iowa Press, 2015.
  • Sisters in Sin: Brothel Drama in America, 1900-1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, American Drama Series, 2006. Paperback issued in 2009.

Digital Archive and Humanities Project

  • "Prostitution & Brothel Drama in the Progressive Era." A Digital Humanities project that archives and investigates theatre, cinema, sexuality, and Progressive-Era prostitution. 

Essays and Book Chapters (selected)

  • “The Silver Bullet: Ghosting the Emperor.” Eugene O’Neill Review 44, no. 2 (2023): 121-131. Update for the article titled: “Indecent Collaborations and/in Queer Time(s).”
  • “Indecent Collaborations and/in Queer Time(s).” Co-written with Sara L. Warner.  In Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Plays by Women: the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Lesley Ferris and Penelope Farfan. University of Michigan Press, forthcoming 2020.
  • "Black to Ireland: Circum-Atlantic Double Exposure and Racialized Jump Cuts in The Emperor Jones." MELUS, Volume 44, Issue 4, Winter 2019, pp.147–176. 
  • "Showing the Show: Strobridge Posters and Late Nineteenth-Century Melodrama." In Showing Off, Showing Up. Eds. Laurie Frederik Meer, Catherine Schuler, & Kim Marra. University of Michigan Press, 2017: 150-173.
  • "An Algerian in Paris: Habib Benglia’s The Emperor Jones." 69.1 Theatre Journal (2017): 21-41. Winner of the 2018 Outstanding Article Award by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.
  • "Racing O’Neill." In The Theatre of Eugene O’Neill: American Modernism on Stage. Ed. Kurt Eisen. London: Bloomsbury/Methuen, October, 2017: 173 - 185.  Paperback issued in 2018. Winner of the Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2018.
  • "Consumptive Chic: The Postfeminist Recycling of Camille in Moulin Rouge!" In Prostitution and Sex Work in Global Visual Media: New Takes on Fallen Women.  Ed. Danielle Hipkins and Kate Taylor. London: Palgrave Global Cinema Series, 2017: 219 -240.  
  • "Brutus Jones Remains: the Case of Jules Bledsoe." Eugene O’Neill Review 36.1 (2015): 1–28.
  • " ‘Anna Christie’ at the Donmar Warehouse." Review Essay.  Eugene O’Neill Review 33.1 (2012): 126 – 140.
  • "Before Katrina: Performative Downpours in Rain & The Deluge (1922)." Modern Drama 52.3 (Fall 2009): 351–368.
  • "From Camille to Lulu Belle: Constructing the Black Prostitute in the American Brothel Drama." Querying Difference in Theatre History.  Ed. Ann Haugo and Scott Magelssen. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007: 94–105.
  • "The Salvation Lass, Her Harlot Friend, and Slum Realism in Edward Sheldon’s Salvation Nell (1908)." Theatre History Studies 26.1 (2006): 88–107. 
  • " ‘Anna Christie’: A Repentant Courtesan, Made Respectable." Eugene O’Neill Review 26 (2004): 87–104. 
  • "Rachel Crothers’ Ourselves: Feminist Dramaturgy in the Brothel Drama."Journal of American Drama & Theatre 15.3 (Fall 2003): 101—121.
  • "Damaged Goods: Sex Hysteria & the Prostitute Fatale." Theatre Survey 44 (2003): 43–67
  • "Zaza: That Obtruding Harlot of the Stage." Theatre Journal 54 (May 2002): 223–43. Winner of the Gerald Kahan Scholar Award
  • "Command Performances: Staging Native Americans at Tillicum Village." Co-written with Tamara Underiner. In Selling the Indian: Commercialism and the Appropriation of American Indian Cultures, ed. Carter Jones Meyer and Diana Royer. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001.
  • "Televising the Panopticon:  The Myth of ‘Reality-Based’ TV."  American Drama 8.2 (1999): 1–26.  Finalist for the "Best of American Drama Essays."
  • "Censoring Sapho: Regulating the Fallen Woman and Prostitute on the New York Stage." ATQ: 19th-Century American Literature & Culture 10.3 (1996): 167­–186.

Theatre Reviews

  • “Welded in Ireland.” Eugene O’Neill Review 44, no. 2 (2023): 222—227.
  • “Long Day’s Journey Into Night at Tao House.” Eugene O’Neill Review 41, no. 2 (2020): 230 -234.
  • "Woyzeck in Winter." Theatre Journal 70.2 (2018): 236–238.
  • "Anna Christie in Paris." Eugene O’Neill Review 36.2 (Fall 2015): 235-238.
  • "Strange Interlude at London’s National Theatre." Eugene O’Neill Review 35.1 (2014): 113–117.
  • "Long Day’s Journey Into Night at London's Apollo Theatre." Eugene O’Neill Review 34.1 (2013): 122-25.
  • "Hairy Ape at London’s Southwark Playhouse." Eugene O’Neill Review 34.1 (2013): 126–30.
  • "The Physicists at London’s Donmar Warehouse." Theatre Journal 65.1 (2013): 107–109.
  • "When Strange is Good: A Neo-Futurist Strange Interlude." Eugene O’Neill Review 31 (2009): 114 -121.

Dramaturgy & Playbills

  • Dramaturg, “Anna Christie” for the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Danville California. September 2023. Writer and creator of audience dramaturgical guide, 23 pages.
  • Co-dramaturg for “Having Their Say” Festival at the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Danville, California and New Ross, Ireland. September and October 2023.
  • Editor and co-designer of audience guide for A Moon for the Misbegotten, Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Danville California (dramaturgical project with 黑料社区s). September 2022.
  • Scholar video, “The First Man” for the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Danville California. December 2022. Scholar videos (3) about The Web, Abortion, and Recklessness for the Eugene O’Neill Foundation’s “Virtual Lost Plays.”
  • Playbill essay, "The Right Kind of Prostitute in Eugene O’Neill's ‘Anna Christie’" London: Donmar Warehouse, August 2011, with Jude Law and Ruth Wilson. Production won an Olivier Award for Best Revival.
  • Dramaturg, Down in Mississippi by Carlyle Brown. Gates Theatre, 黑料社区: October 2009. Winner of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival’s Special Recognition Award for Interactive Lobby Display in collaboration with director Ann Elizabeth Armstrong and 黑料社区s.
  • "Dramaturgy Notes." Down in Mississippi Playbill. 2009. Co-editor, 36 pages.
  • Dramaturg, Machinal. Gates Theatre, 黑料社区: April 1998.
  • Dramaturg, Taming of The Shrew.  Simon Fraser University: Fall 1996.
  • Dramaturg and Co-Creator: The Weaker Vessel: An Examination of Shakespeare’s Women.  Seattle Fringe Festival, 1995.

Book in Progress

  • “Outcast: Staging Race in Transnational Theatre.” This project has been funded by the Getty Research Center, and 黑料社区 Office of Research Innovation.