Dr. Melissa Sihra

Melissa Sihra is Associate Professor in Drama Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Her monograph 'Marina Carr: Pastures of the Unknown' was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018. She was Head of Department from 2019-21. She is Co-Series Editor, with Elaine Aston, of the Cambridge University Press 'Women Theatre Makers' Elements Series. She is Editor of 'Women in Irish Drama: A Century of Authorship and Representation' (Palgrave Macmillan). She was President of the Irish Society for Theatre Research (ISTR) from 2011-2015. She researches and teaches in the field of Feminism, gender, Women in Performance, Playwriting, Dramaturgy and Irish Theatre with special interest in the work of Marina Carr and Lady Augusta Gregory. She has been Chair of and regular speaker at the annual Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering at Gregory's Galway home of Coole Park and has presented workshops on the life and works of Augusta Gregory at The Abbey Theatre. She has contributes to The Irish Times and The Irish Independent on women in Irish theatre. Melissa is a professional Dramaturg and has worked with Holly Hunter on Carr's BY THE BOG OF CATS... at San Jose Repertory Theatre in 2001. She was Dramaturg for the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre Company's production of Carr's PORTIA COUGHLAN (2001) and the Chicago Irish Repertory's production of BY THE BOG OF CATS...(2001) and Brian Friel's MAKING HISTORY (2002) and G.B. Shaw's JOHN BULL'S OTHER ISLAND (2002) and facilitated a South Korean production of Samuel Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT at the Samuel Beckett Theatre (2008).She was a consultant for the Abbey Theatre world premiere of Carr's ARIEL (2002), and a Script Reader at the Abbey Theatre (1998-2002). She was invited by Professor Jill Dolan to lecture on Irish Theatre at Princeton University (Autumn 2011), where she also participated in a symposium at the McCarter Theatre, Princeton, in conjunction with the world-premiere of Marina Carr's play PHAEDRA BACKWARDS, directed by Emily Mann. She is a regular speaker at the annual Synge Summer School, and has delivered Keynote Lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Irvine, the University of Pittsburgh, Villanova University, the University of Glasgow and Helsinki University. In 2007 she was chosen to represent Ireland as part of the Next Generation Leaders Program in South Korea, co-funded by South Korean Government and the National Strategy Institute. Prior to working at Trinity College, she was Lecturer in Drama at Queen's University Belfast (2002-2006)and part-time Lecturer in Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (2000-2002). She was a member of the judging panel of the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1997.

     Irish Theatre, Marina Carr. Irish Playwrights. Women in Performance. Feminism   Lady Gregory   Marina Carr. Augusta Gregory

My research challenges the patriarchal foundations of modern and contemporary Irish drama, relocating women as central to Irish theatre history and contemporary practice. My research on playwright Marina Carr is underscored by an original feminist historiography which reconsiders the gendered nexus of Irish theatre, recalibrating the status of Lady Augusta Gregory as a foundational playwright of the Irish Literary Revival. My monograph 'Marina Carr: Pastures of the Unknown' establishes and explores connections between these two playwrights for the first time and, in so doing, re-presents a tradition in which women are central rather than peripheral. In re-evaluating and repositioning the dramatic legacy of Gregory my monograph on Carr presents a new lens through which to view women in Irish theatre, past and present, radically recalibrating the status of women in Irish theatre and rebalancing the biases of previous histories and approaches. My research since 1998 is an incremental feminist historiography which has made a significant and lasting impact on the field, including my edited volume 'Women in Irish Drama' which identified over 600 plays by Irish women. My research is intellectually incremental where each output builds upon the previous one to develop and solidify a foundational status for women in Irish theatre past and present.