Wendy Arons

Wendy Arons (born 1964) is an American dramaturg, drama professor, and critic who specializes in ecodrama and German translation. She is currently a Professor of Dramatic Literature, Area Chair of Dramaturgy, and Director of the Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie Mellon University.^[1] She has written and edited many pieces for journals and is the author of the book "Performance and Femininity in Eighteenth-Century German Women's Writing: The Impossible Act" (2006) and co-editor, with Theresa J. May, of "Readings in Performance & Ecology" (2012).

Arons has increased artistic access in the theater world to German works: for example, she has translated Brecht's "Good Person of Szechwan" from German into English for an adaptation by Tony Kushner.^[2] She has also worked with Anne Bogart, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

Wendy Arons was born in Birmingham, Michigan.^[3] She attended Yale for her undergraduate degree. She then attended UC San Diego, where she earned her MFA in Dramaturgy, MA in German Literature, and PhD in Literature. Upon graduation, she worked with Anne Bogart from 1988-1989 and again in 1991. She also worked with Robert Falls on a production of "The Misanthrope" (featuring Kim Cattrall). In 1999 she joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame as an Assistant Professor of Theater. While at Notre Dame, Arons published her book "Performance and Femininity in Eighteenth-Century German Women's Writing: The Impossible Act". After eight years of teaching at Notre Dame, she joined the faculty of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama in 2007^[4] as an Associate Professor of Dramatic Literature. From 2008 to 2011, she served as the secretary of the American Society for Theatre Research. Notably, in 2012, Arons became the first person in the CMU School of Drama to win a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant. With her collaborators Sara Figal and Natalya Baldyga she published the first full translation of G.E. Lessing's "Hamburg Dramaturgy" from German to English (Routledge 2018) which is accessible online at https://mcpress.media-commons.org/hamburg/.^[5]

Today, Arons authors The Pittsburgh Tatler (https://wendyarons.wordpress.com/), a theater criticism blog, as well as working as a Professor of Dramatic Literature & Area Chair for the Dramaturgy program in the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, and Director of the CMU Center for the Arts in Society.