Jennifer Wise

MA, PhD University of Toronto
Associate Professor
Theatre History

Phoenix Rm 109
By Appointment | Phone 250-721-8008
wisej@uvic.ca

Areas of Research & Creative Activity
Theatre history, specializing in opera, acting theories, theatre criticism, the Enlightenment, ancient Athens, philosophy and aesthetics.

Courses

Brief Biography

While working as a negative-cutter and assistant film editor in Toronto (The Fifth Estate, Hockey Night in Canada), Jennifer was accepted into the B.F.A. actor-training program at S.U.N.Y. Purchase, where she studied under master teachers George Morrison and Norris Houghton with classmates Stanley Tucci and Ving Rhames. She went on to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. at the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama in Toronto, continuing to act in leading roles in Chekhov, Aphra Behn, and James Shirley at Hart House and other University of Toronto theatres. She also wrote theatre criticism for the campus’s independent weekly. Her first scholarly article, on Bakhtin and Nietzsche, was published in 1989; her first book, Dionysus Writes: The Invention of Theatre in Ancient Greece, was published by Cornell University Press in 1998 and nominated for two U.S. book awards. With Craig Walker of Queen’s University, she is the editor of a two-volume anthology of 43 plays from the Greeks to the present, The Broadview Anthology of Drama: Plays from the Western Theatre (Broadview Press, 2003), as well as The Broadview Anthology of Drama: Concise Edition (2004).

Jennifer’s translation of Aristophanes’ Frogs was performed at the Phoenix in 2000, and at the Byron Theatre in Denver, Colorado, in 2004. Her translation of Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, first staged at the Phoenix in 2002, will be published by Methuen in 2012. The Moons of Jupiter, her first full-length original play, was written for the International Year of Astronomy and workshopped and performed at the University of Victoria in 2009 (see http://www.astronomy2009.org/news/updates/795/).

Jennifer Wise is also a printmaker and illustrator whose work is represented in private collections in New York, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Victoria.

Selected Professional & Creative Achievements

Full professional CV listing visual art exhibits, acting, and dramaturgy

Books

  • Wise, Jennifer, trans. The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, by Bertolt Brecht. London: Methuen, forthcoming Spring, 2012.

  • Wise, Jennifer, and Craig S. Walker, eds. The Broadview Anthology of Drama: Concise Edition. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004.

  • Wise, Jennifer, and Craig S. Walker, eds. The Broadview Anthology of Drama: Plays from the Western Theatre. Two Volumes. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2003. (Reviewed in ECCB and still a standard textbook in the field, adopted in university courses across North America)

  • Dionysus Writes: The Invention of Theatre in Ancient Greece. Cornell UP, 1998. (paperback 2nd ed. 2000)

  • The Broadview Anthology of Drama: Plays from the Western Theatre. Volume One: From Antiquity through the Eighteenth Century. Co-editor, with Craig Walker. Broadview Press, 2003.

  • The Broadview Anthology of Drama: Plays from the Western Theatre. Volume Two: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Co-editor, with Craig Walker. Broadview Press, 2003.

  • The Broadview Anthology of Drama: Concise Edition. Co-editor, with Craig Walker. Broadview Press, 2004.

Book Chapters

  • “Tragödie als ‘eine Weissagung eines glücklichen Lebens’.” Tragödie, Trauerspiel, Spektakel. Ed. Christoph Menke und Bettine Menke. Berlin: Theater der Zeit Researchen, 2007:150-178.

  • “Who Wants to be a Mommy?” Nobody’s Mother. Ed. Lynne van Luven. Heritage House, 2006: 117-131.

Articles

  • “Tragedy as “an augury of a happy life’.” Arethusa. 41 (2008) 381- 410.

  • “Who Wants to be a Mommy?” condensed version. Reader’s Digest. August, 2007.

  • “Pacific Opera Victoria.” Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. The Historica Foundation. 2008.

  • “Mavor Moore.” Canadian Encyclopedia. The Historica Foundation. 2008.

  • “Belfry Theatre.” Canadian Encyclopedia. The Historica Foundation. 2008.

  • “Marginalizing Drama: Bakhtin’s Theory of Genre.” Essays in Theatre, Vol. 8, No. 1, November 1989:15-22.

Book Reviews

  • “London Civic Theatre: City Drama and Pageantry from Roman Times to 1558, by Anne Lancashire.” (Cambridge University Press, 2002) English Studies in Canada. Volume 30, Issue 3. 2004:218-222.

  • “Scenography in Canada: Selected Designers, by Natalie Rewa” (University of Toronto Press, 2004) Theatre Research in Canada. (in press)

  • “After Dionysus: A Theory of the Tragic.” Comparative Literature. Volume 52, no. 3, Summer, 2000:257-59.

Theatre Programs

  • “Biography of Franz Kafka in Relation to the Letter to His Father.” Al Green Theatre, Toronto. Kafka and Son. Dir. Mark Cassidy., starring Alon Nashman. March 6—18, 2006.

  • “A Million Little Collectibles: The True (and False) Story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorff.” (I am My Own Wife). Belfry Buzz. September, 2006: 1-2.

  • “The Fever by Wallace Shawn.” Phoenix Theatre, Victoria. 2004.

  • “Aristophanes’ Frogs” Phoenix Theatre, Victoria. 2000.

Poetry and Translations

  • “The Poet’s Wife’s Lament.” Fleurs du Mal. Vol. 1, No. 2, May 1993.
    Beaumarchais’ Marriage of Figaro, with John van Burek. Broadview Anthology of Drama, Vol. I. Broadview Press, 2003.

  • Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Phoenix Theatre, Victoria. November 14-30, 2002. Directed by Brian Richmond. (unpublished)

  • Aristophanes’ Frogs. Broadview Anthology of Drama, Vol. 1.
    Broadview Press, 2003. Phoenix Theatre, Victoria. Directed by Brian Richmond. October 19-28, 2000. Also performed at The Byron Theatre (Denver, Colorado). Directed by Paula Sperry. May 13-23, 2004.

Acting and Dramaturgy

  • Cameo role (based on Coco Chanel) in Opium, a BRAVO! TV film by Suddenly Dance Theatre, Dir. Miles Lowry. Selected by and screened at the international Dance On Camera Festival, January 3-14, 2007.

  • Walter Reade Theatre, Lincoln Centre, NYC. Also multiple broadcasts on BRAVO! TV and on ARTV, Quebec, 2005 and 2006.

  • Stage version of Opium. Dir. Miles Lowry. Metro Studio Theatre, Victoria, February 23—24, 2006.

  • Dramaturgy for Kafka and Son, based on Kafka’s Letter to His Father. Theaturtle Productions, Toronto. Dir. Mark Cassidy, starring Alon Nashman. Tarragon Arts Fair, May 24/5, 2002; Ashkenaz Festival, Toronto, August, 2002. World Stage Festival, Harbourfront Theatre, Toronto, April, 2005; Al Greene Theatre, Toronto, March 7-18, 2006.

  • Title role in workshop and staged reading of Alma Matters, by William Mackwood, about the life of Alma Rattenbury. Directed by Peter McGuire. Out-of-the-Box Productions at the Belfry Studio Theatre, Victoria. January 2—7, 2001.

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