Jodi I Kanter
Associate Professor of Theatre
Ph. (202) 994-6305
e-mail: jikanter@gwu.edu
Website: www.jodikanter.org

Jodi Kanter’s work focuses on strengthening communities through adaptation and performance. To this end, she has created workshops, events and productions in a wide variety of settings, including theaters, hospices, prisons, cultural centers, libraries, galleries, schools and other public spaces. Her book, Performing Loss: Rebuilding Community Through Theatre and Writing (Southern Illinois University Press, 2007) explores how communities can use performance to respond to shared experiences of grief.

Kanter’s major adapting and directing projects include original adaptations of several contemporary novels for regional festivals, a two year theatre workshop series at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, an oral-history based performance for Missouri’s Alliance for Compassionate Care at the End of Life, and a group of solo performances of Americans Who Tell the Truth for the New York opening of the nationally touring art exhibit by the same name. In 2003, she participated in the international Lysistrata Theatre Project as both a writer and a director. She also directed the original production of In the Garden of the Selfish Giant, winner of the 2005 Distinguished Play award from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education.

Kanter’s articles have appeared in Text and Performance Quarterly, Theatre Annual, Cultural Studies / Critical Methodologies, and Women and Language.  She currently serves as on the editorial board of TPQ. Kanter holds a B.A. in English Literature from Harvard University, an M.A. in Communication Studies from UNC Chapel Hill, and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. She is a trained facilitator of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Before coming to GW, Kanter was Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance at Missouri State University, where she won awards for her teaching, creative work, and service.