Virginia Anderson

Virginia (Ginny) Anderson joined the theater faculty in 2013 after four years at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where she directed for the main stage and taught a variety of theater history courses including theater history survey courses, Women in Theater, African American Theater History, Children’s Theater, Theater in the United States, and LGBTQ Theater. 

At Connecticut College she teaches Theater and Culture I & II, Musical Theater in American Culture, Practical Dramaturgy, Theater of the AIDS Epidemic, Theater for Young Audiences, and production directs. She serves on the steering committee for the Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy and as a core faculty member of the Public Health Pathway.

She earned her Ph.D. from Tufts University’s Department of Drama, a master of arts degree in performance and culture from Goldsmiths College - University of London, a master of arts in drama from Stanford University, and bachelor's of arts in English and theater from Carleton College.

Her essays have been published in "Theatre History Studies,” “Text and Presentation, " and five collections: “Viral Dramaturgies: HIV and AIDS in Performance in the Twenty-First Century,” “Showing Off, Showing Up: Studies of Hype, Heightened Performance, and Cultural Power,” "The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical," "The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre," and "The 1980s: A Critical and Transitional Decade." She has also contributed to Theatre Journal, the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Theatre Annual, and The Sondheim Review. Her current book project concerns the on- and off-stage history of Broadway theatre and the AIDS epidemic.

A scholar-artist, Ginny has directed numerous plays and musicals, including “The Cradle Will Rock,” “Detroit,” “On the Town,” “A Year with Frog and Toad,” “8,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Falsettos,” “Boy Gets Girl,” “Marisol,” “Cabaret,” “The Last Five Years,” “Passion,” “James and the Giant Peach,” and “Spring Awakening.”

Ginny presents her work at numerous conferences and has served in leadership positions within the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR), the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), and the American Theatre and Drama Society (ATDS)

Her dedication to advocacy and the arts has been recognized by the National Center for HIV, STD, & TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) as well as AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts. Ginny is the 2018 recipient of the Helen Mulvey Faculty Award for Fostering Student Achievement at Connecticut College.

For more information, please visit www.VirginiaLAnderson.com.

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