Mechele Leon

A member of the KU faculty since 2002, Professor Mechele Leon teaches theatre history, dramatic theory, acting, and directing at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She served as Chairperson of the Department of Theatre (2012-2017) and as Artistic Director of the University Theatre (2009-2012). Her current research focuses on performance and tourism, with specific interest in Jewish heritage tourism and representations of genealogy. Working for more than two decades on the cultural history of French theatre, her publications include A Cultural History of Theatre in the Enlightenment (Bloomsbury Press, 2017) and Molière, the French Revolution, and the Theatrical Afterlife (University of Iowa, 2009), which received the Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History. Her articles and reviews have been published in Theatre Journal, French Historical Studies, Comparative Drama, and European Studies. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism and was former co-convener of the Historiography section of the International Federation of Theatre Research. She has translated and directed several of Molière’s plays and directs plays in the European and American tradition. She wrote and performed the solo theatre piece "Bladder Interrupted: A Self-Story About Cancer" which aligns research interests around illness and narrative. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities faculty fellowship, a Bourse Chateaubriand from the French Government, and grants from the Hall Center for the Humanities at KU, The French Institute in Washington D.C., and the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University. Living in France from 1996-2001, she taught theatre history, theory, and acting at the American University of Paris and held a post as lecturer in English at the University of Paris. Dr. Leon received her Ph.D. in Theatre Arts from Cornell University and a D.E.A. in Théâtre et arts du spectacle from the University of Paris.