Jenna Soleo-Shanks is a theatre historian and director whose work focuses on the power of performance to connect communities, both historically and through contemporary practices. At UMD she teaches Elements of Theatre, Play Analysis, Creative Collaboration, Directing, The Theatre Experience, and Theatre History I & II. She also mentors student dramaturgs and is the faculty advisor for Stage 2.Â
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Her research has been published in Performance and Theatricality in the Middle Ages (2016), Teaching Medieval and Early-Modern Cross-Cultural Encounters Across Disciplines and Eras (2014), and Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture (2012). She has also written for Theatre Journal, Comparative Drama, Speculum, and Western European Stages. Currently, she is working on a book entitled Saints on Scaffolds: Theatre and Politics in a Medieval Italian City-State. Dr. Soleo-Shanks received her PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.