Dr. Claudia Barnett

Professor

Dr. Claudia Barnett
615-898-2887
Room 375, Peck Hall (PH)
MTSU Box 70, Murfreesboro, TN 37132
Office Hours

 

 

Degree Information

  • PHD, Ohio State University (1994)
  • MA, Ohio State University (1990)
  • AB, Cornell University (1988)

Areas of Expertise

  • Modern and contemporary drama
  • Playwriting

Biography

Claudia Barnett is a professor of English, the coordinator of In Process: A Creative Writing Event Series, and the advisor for the Writing Minor. She is also a playwright. Dr. Barnett teaches Modern Drama (ENGL 4470), Playwriting (ENGL 3665), Science Plays (2020-Honors), and Women Who Kill (ENGL 2020-Honors)--a survey of plays by 20th-century American women.

Publications

Books of Plays

Witches Vanish. Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon UP, 2021.

No. 731 Degraw-street, Brooklyn, or Emily Dickinson’s Sister: A Play in Two Acts. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon UP, 2015.

I Love You Terribly: Six Plays. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon UP, 2012.  

Plays in Literary Journals  

Mice into Horses. Ponder Review 2.1 (2018): 61-67...

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Books of Plays

Witches Vanish. Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon UP, 2021.

No. 731 Degraw-street, Brooklyn, or Emily Dickinson’s Sister: A Play in Two Acts. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon UP, 2015.

I Love You Terribly: Six Plays. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon UP, 2012.  

Plays in Literary Journals  

Mice into Horses. Ponder Review 2.1 (2018): 61-67.

Swimming in the Afternoon. River Styx 93 (2015): 61-68.

Highway 16. Qu Literary Magazine (2014): 48-58.

Kilometer 14. Poems & Plays 21 (2014): 81-88.

Till Death. Santa Clara Review 98.1 (2010): 17-28.

Emily Dickinson’s Sister. Poems & Plays 16 (2009): 35-43.

Sex Lessons. River Styx 80 (2009): 8-14.  

Plays in Anthologies and Scene Books  

"Six Feet." The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2023. Ed. Debbie Lamedman. Lyme, NH: Smith & Kraus, 2023. 22-29.

"Please Let Me Shoot You." Identiy, Culture, and the Science Performance, vol. 2. Ed. Vivian Appler and Meredith Conti, Bloomsbury Methuen, 2023.

"Palooka." The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2017. Ed. Lawrence Harbison. Lyme, NH: Smith & Kraus, 2018. 151-158.

"He Killed My Bird, or Now That We’re in Heaven." Old Stories, New Readings: The Transforming Power of American Drama. Ed. Alfonso Ceballos Muñoz and Miriam López-Rodríguez. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars P, 2015. 249-281.

"Absent Grace." The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2013. Ed. Lawrence Harbison. Lyme, NH: Smith & Kraus, 2013. 13-19.

"Lillie Meant Murder." The Best American Short Plays, 2011-12. Ed. William W. Demastes. Milwauki: Applause, 2013. 97-107.

"Henry" (excerpt). Duo! The Best Scenes for Two for the 21st Century. Ed. Joyce E. Henry et al. Milwauki, WI: Applause, 2009. 62-66.

"Ada" (a monologue from Feather). One on One: The Best Women’s Monologues for the 21st Century. Ed. Joyce E. Henry et al. New York: Applause, 2007. 65-68.

"Devoted." The Art of the One-Act. Ed. Arnold Johnston and Deborah Ann Percy. Kalamazoo, MI: New Issues, 2007. 441-459.

Journal Articles & Book Chapters

“‘More Life’: Ethel Rosenberg’s Ghost and Angels in America.” Women’s Studies 43.2 (2014): 131-54.

“AIDS=Purgatory: Prior Walter’s Prophecy and Angels in America.” Modern Drama 53.4 (2010): 471-494.

“A Moral Dialectic: Shelagh Stephenson’s An Experiment with an Air Pump.” Modern Drama 49.2 (2006): 206-222.

“‘An Evasion of Ontology’: Being Adrienne Kennedy” (includes an interview with Kennedy and her previously unpublished short story, “Milena’s Wedding”). TDR: The Drama Review 49.3 (2005): 157-186.

“Judith Thompson’s Ghosts: The Revenants that Haunt the Plays.” Canadian Theatre Review 114 (2003): 33-37. Rpt. as “Judith Thompson I Duchy” (in Polish) in Dialog 9 (2004): 141-147. Rpt. in Judith Thompson: Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English, Volume 3. Ed. Ric Knowles. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2005. 92-98.

“Painting as Performance: Charlotte Salomon’s Life? or Theatre? TDR: The Drama Review 47.1 (2003): 97-126.

“Physical Prisons: Naomi Wallace’s Drama of Captivity.” Captive Audience: Prison and Captivity in Contemporary Theater. Ed. Thomas Fahy and Kimball King. New York: Routledge, 2003. 147-165.

“Dialectic and the Drama of Naomi Wallace.” Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in Literary History and Criticism. Ed. Robert L. McDonald and Linda Rohrer Paige. Tuscaloosa: U Alabama P, 2002. 154-168.

“‘In Your Dreams’: Deb Margolin’s Fantasy/Drama.” Staging a Cultural Paradigm: The Political and the Personal in American Drama. Ed. Barbara Ozieblo and Miriam López-Rodríguez. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. 273-286.

“Mrs. Dalloway and Performance Theory.” English Language Notes 40.2 (2002): 57-68.

“‘Revengeance is gold mine, sweet’: Alchemy and Archetypes in Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker.” Essays in Theatre/Études théâtrales 19.1 (2000): 45-57.

“Phyllis Nagy’s Fatal Women.” Winner of the Burger Theatre Essay National Competition. Modern Drama 42.1 (1999): 28-44.

“Twice ‘Unmarked’: Jane Martin’s Drama of Identity.” Essays in Theatre/Études théâtrales 17.2 (1999): 129-138.

“A Prison of Object Relations: Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro.Modern Drama 40.3 (1997): 374-384. Rpt. Drama for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Dramas. Vol. 9. Ed. David Galens. Detroit: Gale, 2000 and 2009. 115-120.

“Adrienne Kennedy and Shakespeare’s Sister.” American Drama 5.2 (1996): 44-56.

“‘This Fundamental Challenge to Identity’: Reproduction and Representation in the Drama of Adrienne Kennedy.” Theatre Journal 48.2 (1996): 141-155.

“The Death of Graffiti: Postmodernism and the New York City Subway.” Studies in Popular Culture 16.2 (1994): 25-38.

“Baudriflora: Celebrating History in the Heart of Simulation,” with Robert L. Davis. The American Journal of Semiotics 10.1-2 (1993): 245-269.

“The Metadramatic Prison of Betrayal.” The Pinter Review: Annual Essays (1992-93): 69-72.

Book (editor)

Wendy Wasserstein: A Casebook. New York: Garland, 1998.

Book Reviews

Rev. of The Theatre of Naomi Wallace: Embodied Dialogues, ed. Scott T. Cummings and Erica Stevens Abbitt. Modern Drama 58.2 (2015): 279-81.

Rev. of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: Contexts, Identities, Affinities, and Performances, ed. Phyllis R. Brown, Linda A. McMillin, and Katharina M. Wilson. TDR: The Drama Review 49.3 (2005): 193-94.

Theatre Reviews

Rev. of Things of Dry Hours by Naomi Wallace. O’Reilly Theater, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, 22 Apr. 2004. Theatre Journal 56.4 (2004). 670-672.

Rev. of Three Seconds in the Key by Deb Margolin, Performance Space 122, New York, 24 Feb. 2001. Theatre Journal 53.3 (2001): 501-503.

Rev. of Mr. Bundy by Jane Martin, Actors Theatre of Louisville Bingham Theatre, 14 Mar. 1998. Theatre Journal 50.3 (1998): 379-80.

Rev. of An American Daughter by Wendy Wasserstein, Lincoln Center’s Cort Theatre, New York, 17 Apr. 1997. Theatre Journal 49.4 (1997): 520-21.

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Awards

MTSU:

  • Distinguished Creative Activity Award, 2012, 2023.
  • Outstanding Honors Faculty Award, 2013, 2017.
  • Bob Womack Distinguished Faculty Award, 2006.
  • Distinguished Research Award, 2003.

Creative:

  • Andaluz Award Jury Prize, Fusion Theatre, Albuquerque, NM, 2016.

Scholarly:

  • Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, 2002.
  • Burger Theatre Essay Prize, University of Wyoming, 1997.

Creative Activity

Productions, Workshops, and Readings: Full-length Plays

Aglaonike’s Tiger. Texas A&M University: Digital production, Nov. 2020; Western Kentucky University: Mainstage production, Feb. 2019; Venus Theatre, Laurel, MD: World premiere, Sept. 7-Oct. 1, 2017; University of Pittsburgh: Lab production, Oct. 12-16, 2016; 5th Wall Productions, Charleston, SC: Workshop production, July 15-17, 2016; Magic City Readings Series, Carver Thea...

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Productions, Workshops, and Readings: Full-length Plays

Aglaonike’s Tiger. Texas A&M University: Digital production, Nov. 2020; Western Kentucky University: Mainstage production, Feb. 2019; Venus Theatre, Laurel, MD: World premiere, Sept. 7-Oct. 1, 2017; University of Pittsburgh: Lab production, Oct. 12-16, 2016; 5th Wall Productions, Charleston, SC: Workshop production, July 15-17, 2016; Magic City Readings Series, Carver Theatre, Birmingham, AL: Staged reading, Apr. 25, 2015.; March Forth Summer Salon, New York: Staged reading, Aug. 4, 2014.

Don't Kill the Angels. The Loom, Woven Theatre Company, Nashville: Staged reading, Sept. 6, 2019.

Kingdom (a play about Snow White and climate change). Tennessee Playwrights Studio Festival, Nashville: Staged reading, Nov. 25, 2018. 

No. 731 Degraw-street, Brooklyn, or Emily Dickinson’s Sister. Stella Adler Studio of Acting, New York, August 22-26, 2021; Venus Theatre, Laurel, MD: World premiere, Nov. 7-Dec. 1, 2013; First Annual Truffle Hunt New Play Festival, Truffle Theatre Company, Brooklyn: Staged reading. Sept. 3, 2011; Ingram New Works Festival, Tennessee Repertory Theatre, Nashville: Staged reading, May 10, 2010. 

Theodosia Redux. In Process: A Creative Writing Event Series, MTSU: Staged reading, Nov. 12, 2020; The Salon, Pipeline-Collective: Workshopped throughout 2019-20.

Witches Vanish. Borderlands of History: Gender, Violence, Memory, A Reading Series, University of Pittsburgh: Staged reading, Mar. 18, 2016; Venus Theatre, Laurel, MD: World premiere as part of the Women’s Voices Theatre Festival, Aug 20.-Sept. 20, 2015; 13th Annual Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage Festival: Staged reading by Venus Theatre, Sept. 1, 2014; Great Plains Theatre Conference: PlayLab reading, Omaha, NE, May 26, 2014; 8th Annual Women’s Work Festival, St. John’s, NL, Canada: Staged reading, Mar. 4, 2014; MultiStages New Works Finalist Festival, The West End Theatre, New York: Staged reading, Jan. 20, 2014; LeapFest 9, Stage Left Theatre, Chicago: Workshop production, May 17-June 1, 2012. 

 

 

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Special Projects

https://www.pipeline-collective.com/outside-of-here