Performance Studies, Cultural Studies, Narrative, Performance Practice
B.A. in Theatre and English from the University of North Dakota - 1971.
M.A. in Speech Communication [Oral Interpretation] with a secondary concentration in contemporary American & British fiction - 1973. Thesis Production - Experimental Fiction in Performance: a staged adaptation of Collages by Anais Nin.
Ph.D. in Speech Communication [Interpretation & Performance] - 1977. Dissertation: Adaptation of Narrative Fiction to Readers Theatre Performance, analyzing the phenomenology of aesthetic experience in silent reading, film and stage adaptation.
Christie Logan teaches a range of Performance Studies courses, some theoretical/analytical (e.g. Performance, Language and Cultural Studies) to applied/practices (e.g., Performance & Social Change which uses Theatre of the Oppressed methodologies).
At the graduate level she teaches seminars in Performance Studies and Textual Studies. Her interest in adapting and staging narrative fiction and nonfiction has evolved into more broadly examining the enabling and constraining functions of narrative in the communicative life of the individual, community and social system. She also teaches Communication and Technology, focusing on modes of experience, interaction, and communality available in various online interfaces.
In her thirty years as a director, she's run the gamut from traditional dramatic productions to Chamber Theatre productions to street side Boalian theatre to interactive multimedia performance installations. On campus, she's adapted and directed 20 full scale productions such as William Kennedy's Ironweed, John Hersey's Hiroshima, & In Salvador, featuring Carolyn Forche's poetry collection The Country Between Us and Manlio Argueta's novel One Day of Life. Recent performance installations include simuLAcra: LA by Angelenos and What is Home? Equity waiver productions in Los Angeles include the world premiere of Jeffrey Levy's Celia's World, and her own adaptation of Ann Tyler's Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. At the Vortex Theatre in Albuquerque she directed Lynn C. Miller's play Quiet Talk. In addition, she's directed a dozen books on tape for Simon & Schuster with such actors as William Windom, Cynthia Nixon, and Stacy Keach.
She's published in the journals Literature in Performance, Text & Performance Quarterly, and the American Communication Journal. Her essays & creative work are also included in Communication as Performance, HIV Education: Performing Personal Narratives, The Future of Performance Studies, and The Green Window: Proceedings of the Giant City Conference in Performative Writing.