Profile
Jason Dorwart is a doctoral candidate in the Joint PhD program in Drama & Theatre at University of California San Diego/ University of California Irvine. He studies representations of disability in theatre and film. His dissertation looks at the history of portrayals of disability in performance, theorizing the disabled body as occupying a liminal space between life and death. He draws examples from the plays of Martin McDonagh, portrayals of the Elephant Man, horror films, the freak show, and recent plays written specifically for disabled actors. His dissertation postulates that this perception of the disabled body as inhabiting a permanent state of liminality contributes to the dearth of working disabled actors despite the ubiquity of characters with disabilities. Other scholarly interests include August Wilson, Irish theatre, and film criticism. Jason helped to develop and perform in the Workplace Interactive Theatre Project, a diversity initiative opening discussions about hiring practices in higher education. He has also served as the Lead Editor of TheatreForum, the scholarly theatre journal at UCSD. For his second issue as Lead Editor, he recently finished curating a special issue focusing on disability in performance and has implemented a system for featuring theatrical representation of marginalized social identities in future issues. For this work, he was recently recognized with the UC San Diego Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action and Diversity Award.
