Dassia N. Posner, Guest Speaker

Dassia N. Posner is a theatre historian who specializes in the twentieth-century Soviet avant-garde, the history of stage directing, translation, dramaturgy, and puppetry. In each of these areas, she investigates systems of meaning that lie beyond the spoken word, with particular interest in the visual and physical elements of experimental performance. Her core archival research reclaims the legacies of Soviet-era stage directors whose innovations were distorted or erased in the Stalin era in ways that still impoverish international theatrical practice. 

Posner’s most recent book, The Actor’s Revolution: Art and Politics at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre (Northwestern University Press, 2026), recounts the lost history of the Moscow Kamerny Theatre and its innovators, director Alexander Tairov and actress Alisa Koonen. This work builds on her first monograph, The Director’s Prism: E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde (Northwestern University Press, 2016), which investigates how experimental directors Vsevolod Meyerhold, Alexander Tairov, and Sergei Eisenstein reinvented the rules of theatrical practice by building on the fantastical tales of German romanticism. 

Posner’s recent creative scholarship includes production dramaturgy at Steppenwolf Theatre Company for Seagull, Grand Concourse, Russian Transport, and Three Sisters, and translating Three Sisters for a film directed by Monika Gossmann. 

Posner teaches undergraduate students in Theatre and is a member of the graduate faculty in the MFA in Directing and Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama (IPTD) programs. She is Director of the Critical Studies in Theatre and Performance Interdisciplinary Graduate Cluster and holds courtesy appointments in Slavic Languages and Literatures and Performance Studies.