Associate Professor, Theatre & Drama and the Residential College
About
Ashley Lucas is Associate Professor of Theatre & Drama and Director of the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan. She is a fellow of the Ford Foundation, the UNC Faculty Engaged Scholars Program, and UNC's Institute for Arts and Humanities.
Lucas is also the author of an ethnographic play about the families of prisoners entitled Doin’ Time: Through the Visiting Glass, which she has performed as a one-woman show throughout the U.S. and in Ireland and Canada. Her book manuscript, entitled We All Looking at Walls: Ethnographic Theatre in Prison Contexts, is currently under review at University of Michigan Press. Lucas was recently invited to be the lead writer for the Methuen Critical Companion on Prison Theatre, which will analyze performances from the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil.
Her scholarly publications include articles in the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, the Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Latin American Theater Review, American Music, and Revista de Literatura Contemporania de México. Together with sociologist Jodie Lawston, Lucas guest edited a special issue of the National Women’s Studies Association Journal on the topic of “Women and Criminal Justice: Policing, Prosecution, and Incarceration" (Summer 2008). Lucas and Lawston also collaborated on an edited volume entitled Razor Wire Women: Prisoners, Activists, Scholars, and Artists (SUNY Press 2011) and write a blog by the same title.
Research Areas(s)
- U.S. Latina/o theatre, prison-related theatre, theatre for social change, and related topics in acting, playwriting, and comparative ethnic studies.
Affiliation(s)
- Theatre & Drama Department, Residential College, Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design
