The Center for Performance Studies at the School of Drama is happy to announce that LaDonna L Forsgren, a performance scholar from the University of Notre Dame, will share her new research about blackness and the musical stage on April 30, from 2 to 4 pm. Her talk is titled:  “‘Outrageous American Home Truths’: Blackgirl Wit, Imagination, and Folklore in Contemporary Musical Theatre.”

La Donna L. Forsgren is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of Sistuhs in the Struggle: An Oral History of Black Arts Movement Theatre and Performance (Northwestern UP 2020) and In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement (Northwestern UP 2018). She is the recipient of the 2016 Robert A. Schanke Theatre Research Award and 2020 Oscar G. Brockett Essay Prize for her research on Black queer feminist spectatorship and The Wiz. She serves as Associate Editor for Theatre Survey, a theatre history journal chartered by the American Society for Theatre Research. When she is not working on her current monograph—tentatively titled Black Girlhood on the Musical Stage—she spends hours and hours playing an original game called “Creepy Mommy” with her kids. “Creepy Mommy” is a cross between the video game “Hello Neighbor,” hide and seek, and the movie Tangled. Please feel free to ask follow-up questions after her talk.