Living Theatre

Alvin (Al) Goldfarb is president emeritus and professor emeritus of theatre at Western Illinois University. Dr. Goldfarb also served as provost, dean, department chair, and professor of theatre during his 25-year tenure at Illinois State University as well as managing director of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. He holds a PhD in theatre history from the City University of New York, a master’s degree from Hunter College of CUNY, and a bachelor's degree from Queens College of CUNY. Dr. Goldfarb is the coauthor of Living Theatre, Theatre: The Lively Art, and The Theatre Experience with Edwin Wilson and Megan Geigner, as well as coeditor of The Anthology of Living Theatre with Edwin Wilson. He is also the coeditor, with Rebecca Rovit, of Theatrical Performance during the Holocaust: Texts, Documents, Memoirs, which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Currently, he serves as the lead scholar for the online Holocaust Theatre Catalog, which is hosted at the University of Miami’s Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies. His interest in this area was inspired by his parents, who were survivors of the Holocaust. Dr. Goldfarb has published numerous articles and reviews in scholarly journals and anthologies and is currently a member of the board of Congo Square Theatre in Chicago. Megan E. Geigner is a theatre historian, performance scholar, and writing specialist who teaches in the Cook Family Writing Program at Northwestern University. Her courses focus on racial and ethnic representation, design, business and technical communication, and self-expressive writing. Dr. Geigner has had the pleasure of teaching theatre courses at Illinois State University, City Colleges of Chicago, Northwestern University, the United States Naval Academy, and the University of Chicago. She holds a PhD in Theatre and Drama from Northwestern University. Dr. Geigner is a coauthor of Living Theatre, Theatre: The Lively Art, and The Theatre Experience with Alvin Goldfarb and Edwin Wilson. She is the coeditor of Makeshift Chicago Stages (Northwestern UP) and Theatre after Empire (Routledge). A specialist in Chicago theatre history specifically, she has published extensively on the city’s performance history, including pieces on Columbus Day, the Little Theatre movement, Irish dance, and August Wilson. She has served in leadership roles for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and worked on theatre productions at such places as Chicago’s TimeLine Theatre, Court Theatre, and Remy Bumppo, among others. Edwin (Ed) Wilson attended Vanderbilt University, the University of Edinburgh, and Yale University, where he received an MFA and the first doctor of fine arts degree awarded by Yale. He taught theatre at Vanderbilt, Yale, and, for more than 30 years, at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He was the author of several original plays and produced multiple Broadway plays and films. For 22 years, Professor Wilson was the theatre critic of the Wall Street Journal. A long-time member of the New York Drama Critics Circle, he was president of the Circle for several years. He was also on the board of the John Golden Fund and served a term as president of the Theater Development Fund (TDF). He served a number of times on the Tony Nominating Committee and the Pulitzer Prize Drama Jury. Professor Wilson was the coauthor (with Alvin Goldfarb and Megan Geigner) of the three most widely used college theatre textbooks in the United States: Living Theatre, Theatre: The Lively Art, and The Theatre Experience. Professor Wilson passed away in December 2023.