Dr. Karen Fricker

BA (English) and MA (Dramatic Texts), Stanford University


PhD (Theatre Studies), School of Drama, Trinity College, Dublin

Karen Fricker joins Brock in 2013 in the Department of Dramatic Arts where she teaches in the Theatre Praxis Concentration. Her research interests include contemporary theatre and globalization; contemporary Québec theatre; popular performances of nation and cultural identities; Irish theatre; and theatre criticism.

She is co-investigator, with Dr. Milija Gluhovic (University of Warwick, UK) of the Eurovision and the 'New' Europe research network, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK). Their co-edited volume, Performing the 'New' Europe: Identities, Feelings, and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest, will be published in May 2013 by Palgrave Macmillan in the Studies in International Performance Series (Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton, series editors). This podcast provides an introduction to this research project, and you can hear Karen here speaking about the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest on CBC's Q programme here (22:44).

She is finishing a monograph entitled Making Theatre Global: Robert Lepage's Original Stage Productions, which will appear in Manchester University Press' Theatre: Theory-Practice-Performance series. She received a British Academy research grant to support the writing of this volume.

Karen is also a professional theatre critic who has reviewed and broadcast for The Guardian, Variety, The Irish Times, The New York Times, the BBC, and the CBC, amongst other outlets. She is the founding editor in chief of Irish Theatre Magazine.

From 2007-2012 she was a lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London and in autumn 2012 was the Eakin Visiting Scholar at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada in Montréal. See the news about Professor Karen Fricker receiving the The Charles Bronfman and Rita Mayo Award for Excellence in Teaching at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.

 

Recent Publications:

 

Fricker, Karen, translated by Isabelle Savoie. ‘Le goût du risque: Kà de Robert Lepage et du Cirque du Soleil’ (‘Risky Business: Robert Lepage and the Cirque du Soleil’s Kà‘). L’Annuaire théâtral 45 (2010): 45-68.

 

Fricker, Karen. ‘Robert Lepage.’ The Routledge Companion to Director’s Shakespeare. Edited by John Russell Brown. London: Routledge, 2008. 233-250.

 

Fricker, Karen, translated by Rémy Charest. ‘À l’Heure zéro de la culture (dés)unie. Problèmes de représentation dans Zulu Time de Robert Lepage et Ex Machina’ (‘The Zero Hour of Cultural (Dis)-Unity: The Problem of Robert Lepage and Ex Machina’s Zulu Time’). Globe: Revue internationale d’études québécoises. 11.2 (2008): 81-116. Winner of the 2008 Jean-Cléo Godin Award.

 

Fricker, Karen, with Brian Singleton and Elena Moreo. ‘Performing the Queer Network: Divas, Fans, and Families at the Eurovision Song Contest.’ SQS (Journal of Queer Studies in Finland), 2.7 (2008).

 

Fricker, Karen. ‘Cultural Relativism and Grounded Politics in Robert Lepage’s The Andersen Project.’ Contemporary Theatre Review 17.2 (2007): 119-141.

 

Fricker, Karen. ‘Tourism, The Festival Marketplace, and Robert Lepage’s The Seven Streams of the River Ota.’ Contemporary Theatre Review, 13.4 (2004): 79-93.