Scholarship/ Teaching
Landis’ research interests and publications are varied. He has studied contemporary avant-garde theatre groups, Eastern European actor training methods, Native American melodrama, Nordic art, American drag, performance analyses of evangelical church services, and theatrical intersections in restaurant food preparation. He has published on several of those topics and co-authored the book Cultural Performance: New Perspectives on Performance Studies.
Dr. Landis’ most recent book, One Public: New York’s Public Theatre in the Era of Oskar Eustis, chronicles the famed institution through the words and stories of some of America’s most renowned artists and producers. Of the book, P. Carl, Distinguished Artist in Residence at Emerson College, writes, “Landis’ passion for theater pops off every page making this book essential reading for anyone who believes in the power of live stories to enrich our culture and our nation.”
Sam Waterston, Kevin Landis and UCCS Theatre and Dance students
BOOK
One Public
New York’s Public Theater in the Era of Oskar Eustis
Since its founding by Joseph Papp in the 1950s, The Public Theater has been an American artistic leader defined by its breadth of programming, from Hair and A Chorus Line, to Free Shakespeare in the Park. With the recent critical and financial success of Fun Home and Hamilton, and its emphasis on new play development, The Public's contemporary history has been equally remarkable, even as world crises and social changes have tested the mettle of its foundation of accessible and “radically inclusive” theatre for all.
One Public: New York's Public Theater in the Era of Oskar Eustis presents the broader organization, its creative methodology, and its enormous growth over the past 20 years. Framed by the tenure and leadership of its current artistic director, the book tells the contemporary story, recorded over many interviews with iconic practitioners and performers ranging from Diane Paulus, Tony Kushner and Lynn Nottage to Kevin Kline, Chelsea Clinton and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Case-study driven, One Public uses oral history accounts and authorial experience to illuminate The Public Theater, Eustis and their cultural influence on the city of New York and the greater United States. The story highlights the successes and challenges of an institution at once espousing a mission of inclusivity and community-based arts creation, while also developing Broadway hits and international fame.
BOOK
Cultural Performance
Ethnographic Approaches to Performance Studies
This engaging text introduces the burgeoning and interdisciplinary field of cultural performance, offering ethnographic approaches to performance as well as looking at the aesthetics of experience and performance theory. Examining cultural performance from anthropological, geographical and corporeal standpoints, this book offers many examples of the ways in which performance art and entertainment utilize cultural methods to deepen and enrich the practice. Featuring case studies from a rich cross-section of academics, chapters explore performances from regions as far flung as Bhutan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Ireland, New Zealand and the USA. With cultural performances as varied as Catholic Rituals, Maori ceremonies, Monster Truck rallies, musicals, theatre and singing performances, this fascinating text compares performance as art and performance as cultural expression.
Core reading for introductory and interdisciplinary modules on performance, this is also an ideal text for upper undergraduate and postgraduate students of performance, visual arts, cultural studies or ethnography.
ARTICLE
Culinary Pataphysics
Dining, Theatre, and the Historical Avant-Garde
The movement that is known as molecular gastronomy has received much attention over the past decade, both as a compelling artistic breach of “ordinary cuisine” and for its privileging the scientific advancement of food preparation. The great chefs of this movement are received as auteurs of the meals that they create; not simply chefs, but avant-garde performers. This article proposes that many of the facets of modern haute cuisine have parallels in the historical avant-garde. Through a theatrical lens, Culinary Pataphysics explores some of the history of food’s artistry and draws parallels between drama and cuisine and both disciplines’ use of simulation and disruption. With Alfred Jarry’s remarkable play Ubu Roi as a starting point, three famous restaurants are assessed as contemporary exemplars of an artistic movement that has long been pronounced dead.
ARTICLE