Stacy Wolf

---

Stacy Wolf is one of America’s foremost scholars on musical theatre. She is Professor of Theater at Princeton, Director of Fellowships, and was the Founding Director of Princeton’s Program in Music Theater. She is the author of Beyond Broadway: The Pleasure and Promise of Musical Theatre Across America (Oxford University Press, 2020), which explores musical theater across the country in local and amateur venues like summer camps, high schools, and community theatres. Her chapter on Disney musicals in elementary schools appears in The Disney Musical: Stage, Screen, and Beyond.

Her recent publications include Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical (Oxford University Press, 2011), A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical (University of Michigan Press, 2002), and the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical (with Raymond Knapp and Mitchell Morris, 2011). She has published articles on theatre spectatorship, performance pedagogy, and musical theatre in many journals including Theatre Journal, Modern Drama, and Camera Obscura and was a former editor of Theatre Topics: A Journal of Pedagogy and Praxis. She also has experience as a director and dramaturg.

Other works include “’The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music’: Musical Theatre at Girls’ Jewish Summer Camps in Maine, USA” (Contemporary Theatre Review, 2017); “The Feminine Mystique Goes to Broadway:  Housewives in 1960s Musical Theater” (in The Sixties, Center Stage: Mainstream and Popular Performances in a Turbulent Decade, 2017); and “Keeping Company with Sondheim’s Women” (The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies, 2014). Her essay, "'We'll Always Be Bosom Buddies': Female Duets and the Queering of Broadway Musical Theatre" in GLQ (Gay and Lesbian Quarterly, 2006), won the year’s award for Best Essay in Theatre Studies from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.

Wolf holds a B.A. in English from Yale and an M.A. in Drama from the University of Virginia. She received her Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to her current appointment, Wolf was an Associate Professor in the Performance as Public Practice Program in the Department of Theatre & Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, where she taught from 2000-2008. At Texas, Professor Wolf also taught in the Plan II Honors Program and received a Theatre & Dance teaching award in 2006. Her other teaching positions include Assistant Professor at George Washington University in English and Theatre and Dance (1996-2000) and Assistant Professor in the School of Theatre at Florida State University (1994-1996).

Wolf is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow and received a 2017 President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University.

“A new sightline at the theater: Dolan and Wolf bring fresh view of performance studies” | Princeton University, February 26, 2009

“Performing Desire” | The Drama Review (TDR), Winter 2014 Issue

“How to Make Broadway Musical Theater More Diverse…and Empower Kids Along the Way” | Huffington Post, June 2015

“10 Books Every Theatre Lover Should Read” | ArtsBoston, September 2016

“An Updated Company for an Era of Single Women” | The Atlantic, November 2016

Princeton University President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching | Princeton University, June 2017

HowlRound Theatre History Podcast: From West Side Story to Wicked: Dr. Stacy Wolf on Feminism & the Broadway Musical | Listen to the podcast at HowlRound

“Lessons off Broadway: Princeton professor dissects zeitgeist in musicals” | CBC Radio, Ideas, October 4, 2019

Wolf discusses her new book at BroadwayCon 2020 — January 24, 2020, 1:45-2:45 PM

Stacy Wolf: All the World’s a Stage | Princeton Alumni Weekly, April 8, 2020

“Beyond Broadway”: PU Professor’s New Book Celebrates Community Theatre | Town Topics, April 29, 2020

Berkshire Theatre Group Theatre Book Club with Katie Birenboim: Live Conversation with Stacy Wolf on “Beyond Broadway” | Facebook Live, June 1, 2020, 4 PM (EDT)

“Conversation with Princeton Professor and Musical Theatre Scholar Stacy Wolf” | Broadway World Student Blog, October 12, 2020

“Wolf’s Beyond Broadway named finalist for ATHE Outstanding Book Award” | Association for Theatre in Higher Education, June 5, 2021