Assistant Professor of Theater
Office: 103 Hopkins Center
Office Phone: (603)646-3218
E-mail: Laura.Edmondson@Dartmouth.edu
Laura Edmondson is a scholar and playwright whose work focuses on East Africa. Her articles on Tanzanian and Ugandan theater have appeared in Theatre Journal, Theatre Research International, TDR, and the anthologies African Performance Arts (Routledge 2002) and Violence Performed (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Her book, Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage was published by Indiana University Press in 2007. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the American Association of University Women. She is currently collaborating on a performance piece, "Forged in Fire," with Ugandan performer Okello Kelo Sam and Tanzanian musician Robert O. Ajwang'. The piece integrates music, dance, and text to explore Okello's personal experiences of the civil war in northern Uganda. She also co-organized Eti! East Africa Speaks!, a residency for East African theatre artists at Dartmouth and in New York City that occurred in July 2007. Prior to coming to Dartmouth, she held positions at the University of Georgia and Florida State University. She has also taught theater history and playwriting at the Bagamoyo College of Arts in Tanzania and Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.
