Rachel M. E. Wolfe, Ph.D., is a scholar and theater artist whose work explores the interaction 

between theater and its cultural context. In her research, teaching, and directing, she prioritizes 

drawing connections between theatrical storytelling and the values and assumptions encoded in 

those stories. Her work on adaptation, tracing how stories morph when they change cultural 

contexts, is one facet of this larger intellectual focus. As a feminist scholar, the research and 

plays she produces often address the variety in cultural values and assumptions relating to 

gender.

 

Rachel received her Ph.D. in Theater Studies with a doctoral emphasis in Feminist Studies in 

2016 from the University of California, Santa Barbara, from which she also received an M.A. in 

Theater Studies in 2012. She holds a dual-major B.A. in Theatre Arts and Spanish from the 

University of Puget Sound (2009). Her research interests throughout her education have led her 

to the theaters of a number of different countries and time periods. As a result, she is fluent in 

English and Spanish, and has reading knowledge of French, Italian, and Ancient Greek.

 

Rachel’s scholarly work has appeared in Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, the Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, and Ecumenica: A Journal of Theatre and Performance. Recently, she has made chapter contributions to the edited volumes Vying for the Iron Throne: Essays on Power, Gender, Death and Performance in HBO’s Game of Thrones and Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre and Performance in the US. She is a regular contributor at the annual conferences of the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). Her directing and dramaturgy work has appeared on stages in Seattle, Tacoma, Santa Barbara, and Utica, and includes both academic and professional productions, as well as work with the Seattle-based theater company Handwritten Productions, which she co-founded with fellow Puget Sound alumni in 2010. She has worked as a teacher, teaching assistant, and tutor at both the academic institutions she attended, and is currently employed as an Associate Professor of Theatre at Utica University. She has taught classes on acting, directing, dramaturgy, modern European theater history, global theater history, and dramatic literature, as well as special topics courses on theatrical ghosts and ghosting, Black feminisms onstage, and August Wilson's cycle plays.

 

Raised in Juneau, Alaska and having hopped up and down the West coast throughout her life, Rachel is currently embarking upon a new adventure in upstate New York. When academic and theater pursuits are not occupying her time, she can be found hiking and camping around the Adirondacks in the summer, or curled up inside with her two cats and a good book in the winter.

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View the full Curriculum Vitae of Rachel M. E. Wolfe