Lofty Durham
lofton.durham@wmich.edu
Assistant Professor of Theatre
Theatre History & Script Analysis
Transylvania University, B.A.; University of Pittsburgh, M.A.
University of Pittsburgh, PhD. | Joined WMU: 2009

Lofty Durham is a researcher, teacher, and professional director who joins the Department of Thearte in fall 2009. During the 2008-09 school year, Lofty traveled to libraries and archives in France and England on a Mellon Fellowship to conduct research for his Ph.D. in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies. His dissertation is entitled “Jacques Milet’s Destruction de Troie la Grant: Reassessing French Theatre in the Late Medieval Period,” and was also supported by a 2008 Dissertation Research Award from the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR). He often presents papers at the annual meetings of ASTR and the Medieval Academy of America. At Pitt, he was twice appointed a Teaching Mentor by the Graduate Dean, and won his Department’s Teaching Award. In addition to teaching Theatre History and Script Analysis at Western, he is looking forward to joining Western’s Medieval Institute as an affiliate faculty member, and participating in future Congresses of Medieval Studies.

While in Pittsburgh, Lofty co-founded a small theatre company called Pandora’s Box Theatre, which during its short yet fierce existence produced a two-week repertory of new adaptations of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and Molière’s Amphitryon in summer 2006, and in 2007, a critically acclaimed translation and adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s “chicken play” Chanticleer. He also directed at several other venues in Pittsburgh, including Open Stage Theatre, City Theatre, and Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks. Before arriving in Pittsburgh, Lofty directed professionally in the Washington, DC area, at organizations as varied as Washington Shakespeare Company, Source Theatre Company, the Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia, The Theatre Conspiracy, and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He was also lucky enough to assistant direct at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Elizabethan Theatre for four years.

In addition to his academic and theatre experience, Lofty has worked in nonprofit organizations as a volunteer recruiter and manager, writer and editor, grantmaker, fundraiser, and marketer.