Dr. Shelley Orr
Associate Professor
Theatre
Director of the MA in Theatre Arts
School of Theatre, Television, and Film
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts
SDSU
Bio
Shelley Orr is a dramaturg and theatre scholar, specializing in 20th and 21st century theatre. She has a BS in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, an MFA in Dramaturgy from UCSD, and a PhD in Theatre from the UCI/UCSD joint program. She has taught at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Arizona. Her professional credits include dramaturging or providing dramaturgical support for the San Diego Rep, The Old Globe, and Mo`olelo Theatre Company. She dramaturged Marguerite Duras’s Savannah Bay at New York’s Classic Stage Company, directed by Les Waters and starring Kathleen Chalfant. She dramaturged Beckett’s Happy Days, directed by Robert Woodruff at La Jolla Playhouse; this production had a run at PS 122 in New York. Her article on Duras’s India Song appears in Review: The Journal of Dramaturgy (2019). Her publications have appeared in Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, TheatreForum, American Theatre, Theatron, and Paroles gelees. She has presented at the annual meetings of ASTR and ATHE. Orr is a Past President of LMDA, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.