Dassia N. Posner

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 scholarly and creative research also incorporates translation and dramaturgy, furthers the excellence of scholarship on puppetry and object performance, and illuminates the practical contemporary value of theatricalist histories that still tend to be obscured by narratives privileging spoken text or psychological realism.

Posner’s most recent book, The Actor’s Revolution: Art and Politics at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre (Northwestern University Press, 2026), draws on a decade of archival research to reclaim the lost history of the Moscow Kamerny Theatre and its innovators, Jewish-Ukrainian-Soviet director Alexander Tairov and Alisa Koonen, a Moscow-born actress from an immigrant family. 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; shortlisted for the 2019 Prague Quadrennial Best Scenography Publication and 2017 TLA George Freedley Memorial awards), 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 has also co-edited three books: Making Meaning in Puppetry: Materials, Practice, Perception (Routledge, 2025; Winner, 2026 UNIMA-USA Nancy Staub Book Award; shortlisted for the 2026 TaPRA Edited Collection Prize and 2026 ATHE Excellence in Editing Award); Three Loves for Three Oranges: Gozzi, Meyerhold, Prokofiev (Indiana University Press, 2021; Winner, 2022 ASTR Translation Prize; Runner Up, 2022 TaPRA Edited Collection Prize; Honorable Mention, 2022 ATHE Excellence in Editing Award), and The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance (Routledge, 2014), the first major international collection of puppetry scholarship.

Recent creative scholarship includes production dramaturgy at Steppenwolf Theatre Company for Seagull, Grand Concourse, Russian Transport, and Three Sisters, for which she was also Tracy Letts’s dramaturgical translator, translating Three Sisters for a film directed by Monika Gossmann, and co-directing puppetry performances at Northwestern. Prior to coming to Northwestern, she was the resident dramaturg at Connecticut Repertory Theatre. She has performed as a puppeteer with First Night Boston, the Children’s Free Opera and Dance of New York, Bread and Puppet Theater, Underground Railway Theatre, the Puppeteers’ Cooperative, and Luna Theatre.

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.

Education

PhD, Drama, Tufts University
MA, Drama, Tufts University
BA, Theatre and Russian, Bates College

Recent Publications

Books

• The Actor’s Revolution: Art and Politics at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre (Northwestern University Press, October 15, 2026)
• Making Meaning in Puppetry: Materials, Practice, Perception, co-edited with Claudia Orenstein and Alissa Mello (Routledge, 2026)
• Three Loves for Three Oranges: Gozzi, Meyerhold, Prokofiev, co-edited with Kevin Bartig and Maria De Simone (Indiana University Press, 2021)
• The Director's Prism: E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde (Northwestern University Press, 2016) online archive companion 
• The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance, co-edited with Claudia Orenstein and John Bell (Routledge, 2014)

Selected Essays

• “Across Worlds: The Creation and Reception of Habima’s The Dybbuk.” The Dybbuk Century: The Jewish Play that Possessed the World, ed. Debra Caplan & Rachel Moss (Michigan UP, 2023).
• “The Commedia dell’arte Origins of Biomechanics.” The Routledge Companion to Vsevolod Meyerhold, ed. Stefan Aquilina & Jonathan Pitches. (Routledge, 2022).
• “Nina Simonovich–Efimova: Theatre as Living Sculpture in Motion.” Russian Theatre in Practice, ed. Amy Skinner. (Bloomsbury Methuen, 2019).
• “Interpretations: The Stakes of Audience Interpretation in Twentieth–Century Political Theatre.” A Cultural History of Theatre in the Modern Era, ed. Kim Solga. Vol. 6 of A Cultural History of Theatre, ed. Christopher Balme and Tracy Davis (Bloomsbury Methuen, 2017).
• “Translating into Polyphony: Creating a Dramaturgical Translation for Three Sisters at Steppenwolf.” Theatre Topics 23.1 (March 2013).

Awards and Honors

• 2026: Winner, Nancy Staub Book Award, Union Internationale de la Marionnette-USA
• 2026: Shortlist, Edited Collection Prize, Theatre & Performance Research Association
• 2026: Shortlist, Excellence in Editing Award, Association for Theatre in Higher Education
• 2022: Winner, Translation Prize, American Society for Theatre Research
• 2022: Honorable Mention, Excellence in Editing Award, Association for Theatre in Higher Education
• 2022: Finalist, Edited Collection Prize, Theatre & Performance Research Association
• 2020: Karl Rosengren Faculty Mentoring Award
• 2019: Shortlist, Best Performance Design and Scenography Publication Award, Prague Quadrennial
• 2017: Finalist, George Freedley Memorial Award, Theatre Library Association
• 2015–2016, 2013–2014: Honor Roll for Undergraduate Teaching, Associated Student Government
• 2015: Clarence Simon Award for Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring
• 2014: Cambridge University Press Prize, American Society for Theatre Research

Fellowships and Grants

• 2024: National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
• 2023: Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Fellowship Grant
• 2023: Franklin Grant, American Philosophical Society
• 2022, 2024: Travis Bogard Artist-in-Residence, Tao House, Eugene O’Neill Foundation
• 2018–19: Fellow, American Council of Learned Societies
• 2018–19: CHCI-ACLS Fellow, Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities
• 2014–2015: Faculty Fellow, Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities
• 2012–2015: Undergraduate Research Assistant Program grants
• 2014: Summer Stipend Award, National Endowment for the Humanities

Classes

Undergraduate Classes

• History of Directing
• Play and Production Analysis
• Dramaturgy
• Puppetry History and Performance
• Russian and Ukrainian Revolutionary Theatre
• Theatrical Translation

Graduate Classes

• Framing European Theatre
• History of Directing
• History of Theatrical Practice
• Dramaturgy
• Research Design and Prospectus Writing
• Teaching Theatre History