As a scholar and teacher, Matt Cornish is interested in the intersections of theater and performance studies, philosophy, and German studies. He is the author of Performing Unification: History and Nation in German Theater after 1989 (U. of Michigan Press, 2017/paperback 2019), a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2018. Marvin Carlson wrote of the book: “This important study not only sheds significant new light on the modern German stage, but has implications for the relationship between theatre and contemporary society around the world.” In German Studies Review, Katrin Sieg wrote that Performing Unification “will be the indispensable complement to [Hans-Thies] Lehmann’s” Postdramatic Theatre. Matt is also the editor of Everything and Other Performance Texts from Germany (Seagull Books, 2019), which includes performance texts by Gob Squad and Rimini Protokoll, among others. And he is co-editor, with Michael Shane Boyle and Brandon Woolf, of Postdramatic Dramatic Theatre and Form (Methuen, 2019), to which he contributed a chapter on postmigrant theater in Germany. In his current book project, he is exploring questions related to ethics, aesthetics, and performance.

Matt’s essays have appeared in books including the Routledge Companion to Scenography, as well as inTheatre Journal, Modern Drama, Performance Research, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art,TheatreForum, TDR: The Drama Review, and Theater. As a critic and journalist, he has contributed to leading German theater magazine Theater der Zeit, and he has also published in n+1 online, Public Books, and the New Haven Review. His research has been supported by a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, a Fulbright Research Fellowship, and a DAAD Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, all held in Berlin.

As a dramaturg, Matt has worked at Tantrum Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, and Son of Semele, and with IAMA Theatre Company. He dramaturgs productions at Ohio University, mentors student dramaturgs, and helps to lead educational outreach efforts in rural areas around Athens.

He has taught in the past at Yale College, Yale School of Drama, and Mount Holyoke College.

Educational Background:

Doctor of Fine Arts, Yale School of Drama
Master of Fine Arts, Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism, Yale School of Drama
Bachelor of Arts, Theater, German, and Philosophy, University of Denver