DrJ Paul Halferty

I am a theatre historian and a queer theatre and performance studies scholar whose research examines the intersection of theatre and identity, primarily sexual, gender, national, and race. I am director of the UCD Centre for Canadian Studies. Before returning to graduate school, I taught acting at the Randolph Academy for The Performing Arts in Toronto, and was assistant producer to Sherrie Johnson at da da kamera and the Six Stages Festival, also in Toronto. I completed my doctorate at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto in 2014. Titled Political Stages: Gay Theatre in Toronto 1967-1985, my thesis won the Clifford Leech Dissertation Prize for best dissertation in the subject of drama, and I'm currently preparing it for publication with McGill-Queens University Press. I have taught at York University, the University of Toronto, and at Brock University, mainly in the areas of theatre history, acting, and gender and sexual diversity studies. My work has been published in Theatre Research in Canada, Canadian Theatre Review, and in the anthology Queer Theatre in Canada, I am associate editor and contributor to TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work, and co-editor with Dr. Cathy Leeney of Analysing Gender in Performance. I am currently working on a monograph titled Political Stages: Gay Theatre in Toronto, 1967-1985, under contract with McGill-Queens University Press. I was a member of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre's board of directors from 2007 until the end of 2013, serving as its president from 2008 to 2012. In addition to my academic research, I work as a dramaturge.