Profile for Nic Barilar
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Nic Barilar Pronounce my name
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Assistant Professor
Theatre & Dance
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
Specialty area(s)
Theatre History
Dramatic Literature
Directing
Dialects and Accents
Brief biography
Dr. Nic Barilar is a theatre historian, teacher, director, and actor who joined UWL's Department of Theatre and Dance in 2022. Nic teaches teaching courses in theatre history, dramatic literature, and performance and directs productions in UWL's season of shows. As a historian and performance theorist, Nic focuses especially on transnational issues (the movement of ideas, media, texts, and people across national borders) and countercultural social and cultural expression in mid-twentieth century Irish theatre and drama. His research has been published in numerous books including The Palgave Handbook of Theatre Censorship, The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature, and Beckett Beyond the Normal as well as The Journal of American Theatre and Drama. As an artist, Nic has performed a number of production roles across theatre's many disciplines. In 2019, he produced, directed, co-coached the dialects, and choreographed the intimacy for the North American premiere of Máiréad Ní Ghráda's 1964 Irish classic, On Trial -- an experimental drama about the historical abuse and neglect single mothers in Ireland faced in the mid-twentieth century. A proud member of Actors' Equity Association, the union of professional stage actors, Nic has also worked as an actor and singer at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center (Midland, PA), the Pittsburgh Festival Opera (Pittsburgh, PA), the Virginia Samford Theatre (Birmingham, AL), and the Barn Theatre (Augusta, MI).
You can learn much more about Dr. Nic's work on his website: nicbarilar.com
Current courses at UWL
THA 110: Theatre Appreciation
THA 210: Foundations of Theatrical Production (Script Analysis Component)
THA 250: Theatre History and Literature I: Origins to 1865
THA 351: World Theatre
Education
PhD - Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Pittsburgh
MA - English Literature, University of Alabama
BFA - Theatre: Acting, Clarion University of Pennsylvania
BA - English: Film and Drama Studies, Clarion University of Pennsylvania
Career
Teaching history
In addition to the above, I also teach these courses at UWL:
130: Multicultural U.S. Drama and Theory
THA 201: Dramatic Literature and Theatre Arts
THA 210: Foundations of Theatrical Production (Script Analysis Component)
THA 350: Theatre History and Literature II: 1865 to the Present
THA 420: Directing
THA 421: Performance Studio -- Stage Dialects and Accents
Research and publishing
"Remembering Censorship in the World Premiere of Seán O'Casey's The Drums of Father Ned: Lafayette, Indiana, 1959."Journal of American Drama and Theatre 37.2 (2025).
"Moving Censorship: Memory and Reception in Allan McClelland's Bloomsday in Dublin, 1962." In The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre Censorship, edited by Anne Etienne and Graham Saunders, 553-69. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
"Decolonisation and the Theatre of the Absurd." Co-authored with Hannah Simpson. In The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature, edited by Michael Y. Bennett, 472-83. Routledge, 2024.
"Beckett's Queer Time of Défaillance: Ritual and Resistance in Happy Days." In Beckett Beyond the Normal, edited by Seán Kennedy, 103-16. Edinburgh University Press. 2020.
Kudos
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