Scholars@Duke
Ryan M Donovan

Ryan M Donovan

Assistant Professor of Theater Studies
Theater Studies
Office hours I am on research leave during the 2025-2026 academic year.  

Selected Publications

‘State of the Field’ roundtable: Disability pedagogy and practice in musical theatre

Journal Article Studies in Musical Theatre · October 1, 2025 In this roundtable conversation, six musical theatre scholars and practitioners engage in a wide-ranging discussion about the evolving intersections between disability and musical theatre in pedagogy and professional practices. Starting from the provocativ ... Full text Cite

"It Feels Like Being in Jail All Over Again": Staging the Criminalized Liminality of Sex Offenders

Journal Article Theatre Journal · September 2024 Abstract: Two plays focusing on the postincarceration experiences of sex offenders opened in 2018: Life Jacket Theatre Company's America Is Hard to See and Bruce Norris's Downstate . Both plays ask spectators to recognize the humanit ... Full text Cite

The Normativity of the Extraordinary: Musical Theatre on the Page and on the Stage

Chapter · August 27, 2024 Musicals communicate in multiple semiotic languages at once—music and lyrics; speech; blocking and dance; and set, costume, lighting, and sound design. Characters exist on the page and on the stage, portrayed by actors whose bodies and voices carry their o ... Link to item Cite

‘Now you know’: On Sondheim and middle age

Journal Article Studies in Musical Theatre · December 1, 2023 This article examines how Stephen Sondheim persistently and profoundly probed the second act of life, especially the years of middle age. I didn’t know it when I began discovering Sondheim’s works as an adolescent, but his lyrical insights prepared me for ... Full text Cite

Queer Approaches in Musical Theatre

Book · June 29, 2023 Queer Approaches in Musical Theatre introduces readers to a facet of musicals often assumed yet misrecognized: that queerness and musical theatre's relationship extends much deeper than camp fabulosity and reveals, at times, ... ... Cite

Broadway Bodies A Critical History of Conformity

Book · 2023 "The Broadway Body I lied about my height on my résumé the entire time I was a dancer, though in truth I don't think the extra inch ever actually made a difference. ... Cite

The Body Politics of Broadway

Journal Article DANCE MAGAZINE · 2023 Cite

“That's Showbiz, Kid”

Chapter · November 29, 2022 Full text Cite

An American in Tokyo?

Chapter · November 29, 2022 Full text Cite

Introduction

Chapter · November 29, 2022 Full text Cite

'If You Were Gay, That’d Be Okay': Marketing LGBTQ Musicals from 'La Cage' to 'The Prom.'

Chapter · August 26, 2022 Critics and fans alike often mistake theatrical song and dance as evoking a sweeping sense of simplicity, heteronormativity, and traditionalism. ... Cite

William Finn

Chapter · 2022 The performers, directors, playwrights, designers, and producers profiled in this collection have contributed to the representation of LGBTQ lives and culture in a variety of theatrical venues, both within the queer community and across the ... ... Cite

Style as Star

Chapter · August 16, 2019 Full text Cite

Special Issue: Dance in musical theatre

Journal Article Studies in Musical Theatre · January 1, 2019 This special issue of Studies in Musical Theatre examines the role of dance in musical theatre from a variety of perspectives. Given the scholarly turn from textual analysis to performance analysis, even studying musicals without exten-sive dance per se ca ... Full text Cite

Acts of recognition: Gesture and national identity in Agnes de Mille’s ‘Civil War Ballet’

Journal Article Studies in Musical Theatre · September 1, 2012 Through both her dances and writings Agnes de Mille explored what it means to be American. I argue that, in addition to the explicitly America-themed material de Mille chose, her choreography performs national identity through its use of gesture – ... Full text Cite