About

I specialize in object performance and puppetry, in both live theatre and video. My historical projects focus on ancient imagined worlds, and I work as a collaborative project editor with a variety of artists and architects.

I am trained as a professional historian and received my PhD in 2005; I am also trained as a performer and puppeteer, and have worked with artists and companies in New York, Detroit, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.

Recent Projects

I create object performance and object videos for many different literary and theatrical undertakings.

In 2021, I created and directed object work for Hope Mohr Dance in San Francisco for a live trans-centered dance theatre performance, “Bacchae Before,” which opened at the Joe Goode Annex, and ran again in 2022, with a new interactive object installation, at the Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco. It toured to Johns Hopkins University in Spring 2023 and continues to tour. The 30-minute video prelude, “Before Bacchae Before,” for which I created object video sequences, was an official selection of the 2021 San Francisco Transgender Film Festival.

In 2024, my book Life: The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe, an experiential exploration of the intersections between late ancient science, philosophy, and religion came out with the University of California Press. It is available for order in paperback here. You can read the introduction here.

Current Projects & Possibilities

In 2024 I began two new projects. The first is an experimental adaptation of Homer’s Iliad for puppet and object theatre, in collaboration with poet Anthony Vahni Capildeo and director and choreographer Hope Mohr. It is tentatively entitled Men with Names: A Puppet Iliad. The second project is a combined short book and multimedia project called Diocletian: A Reckless Autobiography.

If you are a writer, artist, or performer and are interested in using object or puppet elements in your current work, please feel free to contact me.

I have run workshops at Stanford, USC, and the University of Michigan on puppetry and on integrating art, play, and research. If you work in an academic setting and would like to host a lecture or workshop on integrating research, performance, art, and play, please also feel free to contact me.

Writing

Most of my writing is about ancient history and ancient religion. Here are a few examples:

After Post, or, Animal Religion in an Age of Extinction

Four Notes on Memory Theatre

Marvelous Things Heard: On Finding Historical Radiance

I have published books, book chapters, and articles with different university presses and in a number of different academic journals, and I regularly work as a collaborative project editor with artists and architects who have interesting stories to tell.

If you are extra curious about my academic writing, you can find more here.