Bess Rowen, Ph.D.

Bess Rowen is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University. She earned her doctorate in Theatre and Performance at The Graduate Center, CUNY and her MA in Performance Studies from New York University after completing a BA in English and Theatre (with a minor in Psychology) at Lehigh University. Her work focuses on what she terms "affective stage directions," which are stage directions written in ways that engage the physical and emotional responses of future theatre makers. While at CUNY, she was the recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Public Humanities as well as a Graduate Center Dissertation Fellowship. She is a proud member of the Actors’ Equity Association and has studied acting at Michael Howard Studios, The Berkshire Theatre Festival, and The Gaiety School of Acting in Ireland. Aside from acting, she has also played with stage directions as the co-director of Eugene O'Neill's Marco Millions with Target Margin Theater and in her short play for Imagined Theatres. Bess is the Co-editor of the Journal of American Drama & Theatre and a faculty editor for Villanova's graduate interdisciplinary journal, Concept. She formerly served as the Performance Review Editor for The Eugene O'Neill Review. Recent works include the chapter “'You See What Happened there?’: Soliloquies and Queer Phenomenology in Fat Ham in Revenge is Mad Hard: Fat Ham and the Question of Cultural Reclamation, as well as chapters in Milestones in Queer US Theatre, Milestones in Staging Contemporary Genders and Sexualities, and Stories of the Holocaust Onstage and in Concert: Art for Healing and Renewal. She also edited the new student critical edition of A Streetcar Named Desire for Methuen Drama. Other articles can be found in Modern Drama, Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Theatre Topics, The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, The Eugene O'Neill Review, and The Tennessee Williams Annual Review. At Villanova, she teaches graduate courses on theatre theory, dramatic literature, academic writing, and gender & sexuality studies, and undergraduate courses in acting, gender & sexuality studies, and true crime. She also works as an intimacy professional. For a complete curriculum vitae, click here.

You can learn more about Bess and her work on ResearchGate, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and Goodreads. For a schedule of upcoming special appearances and engagements, click here.