Leslie Hill to Join Theatre & Dance Faculty as Department Chair, Artistic Director
Hill was most recently a professor of theatre and performance making at the University of Roehampton, London.Tuesday, May 7, 2024 05:34 PM
Theatre director, performer and scholar Leslie Hill will join the theatre & dance faculty this fall, serving as department chair and professor of theatre. She will also serve as artistic director for the co-curriculum, leading a collaborative planning process to guide the theatre & dance production series.
“My job as chair is to try and create the conditions that enable the whole ensemble of faculty, staff and students to shine,” she says. “I am very much an ensemble-style leader. I believe that collaborative visions inspire better, more doable ideas than top-down management plans.”
Hill is interested in the intersection of theatre with politics, activism and social justice movements. She has spent the past 15 years producing work that focuses on creating curiosity and engagement around environmental issues and exploring more sustainable methods to create theatre performances. She looks forward to continuing these explorations at Muhlenberg.
Hill was most recently a professor of theatre and performance making at the University of Roehampton, London. Her most recent book, Devising Theatre & Performance: Curious Methods (2021), is a deep dive into creative practice, published by The University of Chicago Press. Her recent book Sex, Suffrage and the Stage: First Wave Feminism in British Theatre was published in 2018 for the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom.
Previously, Hill was associate professor and artistic director of Stanford’s Department of Theatre & Performance Studies from 2011 to 2017. She also led the practice-based interdisciplinary arts Ph.D. program at the University of East London from 2006 to 2010.
Originally from New Mexico, Hill holds a double Bachelor of Arts degree in English and philosophy from the University of New Mexico, a Master of Arts in text and performance from the University of Birmingham (UK) and a Ph.D. in theatre from the University of Glasgow. She was awarded a NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) fellowship in 2003 and has been visiting professor at institutions such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Brasenose College, Oxford.
Hill says her goals for her first year on the job are to start off by listening to and learning from the students, staff and faculty, and then begin collaborating to build a new future-facing vision for the department, fostering a convivial, open culture and addressing conflicts with courage and honesty.
“The faculty and staff here are outstandingly talented, and I very much look forward to working with them,” she says. “I love the balance of practical and intellectual methods on offer to the students, and I love the department’s mission to ‘cultivate creative citizens and future art makers.’ That’s what it’s all about.”
Hill says she was also impressed by Muhlenberg students’ independent spirit and creativity, and by their willingness to take risks.
Hill is the co-founder of the London-based performance company Curious, where she has served as co-director for the past 25 years, specializing in highly collaborative, site-specific performance works that range in subject from the entwining of scent and memory to the politics of violence. She says she’ll be retiring from Curious to relocate to Allentown, where she will focus on creative collaborations that don’t require touring, such as sound recordings and writing projects. She also looks forward to facilitating performance projects on the Muhlenberg stage.
“I love bringing together people with diverse skills,” she says, “and seeing what happens when they collaborate.”
About the Muhlenberg College Theatre & Dance Department
Muhlenberg offers Bachelor of Arts degrees in theatre and dance. The Princeton Review ranked Muhlenberg’s theatre program in the top twelve in the nation for eight years in a row, and Fiske Guide to Colleges lists both the theatre and dance programs among the top small college programs in the United States. Muhlenberg is one of only eight colleges to be listed in Fiske for both theatre and dance.
About Muhlenberg College
Founded in 1848, Muhlenberg is a highly selective, private liberal arts college offering baccalaureate and graduate programs. With an enrollment of nearly 2,000 students, Muhlenberg College is dedicated to shaping creative, compassionate, collaborative leaders through rigorous academic programs in the arts, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences; selected preprofessional programs, including accounting, business, education and public health; and progressive workforce-focused post-baccalaureate certificates and master’s degrees. Located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, approximately 90 miles west of New York City, Muhlenberg is a member of the Centennial Conference, competing in 23 varsity sports. Muhlenberg is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
