Publications — Isaiah M. Wooden, PhD

books

Reclaiming Time: Race, Temporality, and Black Expressive Culture (Northwestern University Press, under contract)

August Wilson in Context, co-edited with Khalid Y. Long (Cambridge University Press, under contract)

Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration, co-edited with Sharrell D. Luckett and David Román (Northwestern University Press, 2020)

articles, chapters, and essays

“Forum: Encounters in the August Wilson Archive” (co-edited with Sandra G. Shannon). Theater, 54.1. (2024)

“In Praise of Performance Reviews.” Theatre Journal, 75.4. (2023)

“At the Nexus of Catharsis and Black Healing: Ritualizing Repair in What to Send Up When It Goes Down.” Theatre Annual: A Journal of Theatre and Performance of the Americas, 75.1. (2023)

“Teaching The Colored Museum and Its Doubles: Black Queer Theatrical Aesthetics in Bootycandy and Ain’t No Mo’.” Modern Drama, 66.2 (2023)

“‘Those Songs Were More than Just’: Spirituals, Queer Reckonings, and Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy.” Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance: Acts of Rebellion, Activism, and Solidarity, edited by DeRon S. Williams, Khalid Y. Long, and Martine Kei Green-Rogers. London: Methuen Drama (2023)

“Spirit in the (Monochromatic) Light.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 134 (2023)

“Forum: Black Theater, Under Pressure.” Theater, 53.1 (2023)

“Effective Dreaming in the Time of Zoom Theatre: Reflections on Directing The Lathe of Heaven.” Theatre Topics, 32.3 (2022)

“Black Life and Photographic Time: LaToya Ruby Frazier’s Grandma Ruby.” Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, 51 (2022)

“Tarell Alvin McCraney.” Fifty Key Figures in US Queer Theatre, edited by Jimmy Noriega and Jordan Schildcrout. New York: Routledge (2022)

“In Moonlight, Perpetually Outside.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 9.1 (2022)

“Porgy and Bess.” Fifty Key Stage Musicals, edited by Robert W. Schneider and Shannon Agnew. New York: Routledge (2022)

“The Black Gaze / A Different Account” (with Eric M. Glover). Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the US, edited by Lindsey Mantoan, Matthew Moore, and Angela Farr Schiller. New York: Routledge (2021)

“Grace Is a Practice.” Theatre Survey, 62.3 (2021)

“A Documentary Milestone: Revisiting Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement.” Journal of American Drama and Theatre, 33.2 (2021)

“Something Glorious to Draw On: James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry Now.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 128 (2021)

“How Bigger Was Born Anew: Adaptation, Refiguration, and Double Consciousness in Nambi E. Kelley’s Native Son.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 35.1 (2020)

“The Archive and the Dramaturg: Ethical Reckonings.” Performing Ethos: An International Journal of Ethics in Theatre and Performance, 10.1 (2020)

“Ogun Size Enters; or, An Introduction.” Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration, edited by Sharrell D. Luckett, David Román, and Isaiah Matthew Wooden. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (2020)

“Tarell Alvin McCraney, In His Own Words.” Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration, edited by Sharrell D. Luckett, David Román, and Isaiah Matthew Wooden. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (2020)

“Teaching African American Plays as ‘Reality Checks’; or, Why Theatre Still Matters.” Teaching Critical Performance Theory, edited by Jeanmarie Higgins. New York, NY: Routledge (2020)

“Ms. Blakk’s Radical Queer History.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 124 (2020)

"Reppin’ Blackness: Five Beats on the Art of Derrick Adams." The Black Scholar, 49.3 (2019)

"The Complex Racial Politics of Smart People." Modern Drama, 62.2 (2019)

"How to Do Things with Stage Directions: Lessons from Contemporary African American Drama." Theatre Topics, 28.3 (2018)

"Adrian Piper, Then and Again." PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 120 (2018)

"Robert O'Hara's Defamiliarizing Dramaturgy." The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance, edited by Renee A. Craft, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Kathy A. Perkins, and Sandra L. Richards. New York, NY: Routledge (2018)

"Jefferson Pinder and the Art of Black Endurance." PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 118 (2018)

“Astigmatisms”; “‘The Night Everything Happened’ Gloss”; and, “Touching Touches and Gloss” (reprinted in Theatre Journal). Imagined Theatres: Writing for a Theoretical Stage, edited by Daniel Sack. New York, NY: Routledge (2017)

“Touching Touches and Gloss,” in “A Constellation of Imagined Theaters: Theater and Technology,” edited by Daniel Sack. Theatre Journal, 68.3 (2016)

“Gem of the Ocean’s Fugitive Movements.” August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle: Critical Perspectives on the Plays, edited by Sandra G. Shannon. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. (2015)

“Bearing Witness: Intersections of Art and Protest.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 109 (2015)

“Shadows, Acts, and Radical Presence.” Theater, 44.3 (2014)

performance and book reviews

Performance Review of The Piano Lesson by August Wilson, Directed by LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 23 September 2022). Theatre Journal, 75.2 (2023)

Performance Review of How to Catch Creation by Christina Anderson, Directed by Niegel Smith (Goodman Theatre, Streamed 18 March 2021). Theatre Journal, 73.4 (2021)

Performance Review of The Amen Corner by James Baldwin, Directed by Whitney White (Shakespeare Theatre Company, 28 February 2020). Theatre Journal, 73.1 (2021)

Performance Review of The Oresteia by Ellen McLaughlin, Freely Adapted from the Trilogy by Aeschylus, Directed by Michael Kahn (Shakespeare Theatre Company, 6 May 2019). Theatre Journal, 72.1 (2020)

Performance Review of Les Blancs by Lorraine Hansberry, Directed by Yael Farber (National Theater, London, 31 May 2016). Theatre Journal, 68.4 (2016)

Performance Review of Head of Passes by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Directed by Tina Landau (Steppenwolf Theater Company, 3 May 2013). Theatre Journal, 66.2 (2014)

Performance Review of Bootycandy by Robert O’Hara, Directed by Robert O’Hara (Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, 1 July 2011). Theatre Journal, 64.2 (2012)

Performance Review of Fences by August Wilson, Directed by Kenny Leon (Cort Theater, 18 April 2010). Theatre Journal, 63.1 (2011)

Review of Black Theater, City Life: African American Art Institutions and Urban Cultural Ecologies by Macelle Mahala (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2022). Modern Drama, 66.4. (2023)

Review of Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time by Teju Cole (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021). PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 133 (2023)

Review of Sistuhs in the Struggle: An Oral History of Black Arts Movement Theater and Performance by La Donna L. Forsgren (Northwestern University Press, 2020). Theatre Journal, 74.1 (2022)

Review of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman (W. W. Norton, 2019). Theatre Journal, 71.4 (2019)

Review of Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze by Shane Vogel (University of Chicago Press, 2018). Journal of American Drama and Theatre, 32.1 (2019)

Review of Coloring Whiteness: Acts of Critique in Black Performance by Faedra Chatard Carpenter (University of Michigan Press, 2014). Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 30.2 (2016)

Review of Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies: Performance, Race, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance by James F. Wilson (University of Michigan Press, 2010). Theatre Journal, 64.4 (2012)

Review of The Scene of Harlem Cabaret: Race, Sexuality, Performance by Shane Vogel (University of Chicago Press, 2009). Callaloo, 35.3 (2012)