Laurence Senelick (born October 12, 1942) is an American scholar, educator, actor and director. He is the author, editor, or translator of many books.

Teaching

Senelick joined the Department of Drama at

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

in 1972, where he was later named Fletcher Professor of Oratory and served as Director of Graduate Studies for 30 years. He retired in 2019.

Scholarship

Senelick's scholarship has focused on popular entertainment, with research into

music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the World War I, Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as Varie ...

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicy ...

and

pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment, generally combining gender-crossing actors and topical humour with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or ...

. His work on Russian and Soviet theater was honored by the St. George Medal of the

Russian Ministry of Culture The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation () is a ministry of the Government of Russia responsible for state policy in cultural spheres such as art, cinematography, archives, copyright, cultural heritage, and censorship. Formation and ...

. His writings also studied gender in performance, culminating in ''The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre'' (2000).

Theater

Senelick has directed productions for many groups, including the

Opera Company of Boston The Opera Company of Boston was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts, that was active from the late 1950s through the 1980s. The company was founded by American conducting, conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1958 under the name Bo ...

Boston Baroque Boston Baroque is the oldest period instrument orchestra in North America. It was founded in 1973 by the American harpsichordist and conductor, Martin Pearlman, to present concerts of the Baroque and Classical repertoire on period instruments, ...

, the

Loeb Drama Center The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is a professional not-for-profit theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1979 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to ne ...

, and the

Purcell Society {{primary sources, date=March 2015 The Purcell Society, founded in 1876 (principally by William Hayman Cummings) is an organization dedicated to making the complete musical works of Henry Purcell available. Between 1876 and 1965, scores of all the k ...

. His productions include the US premieres of the

Seneca the Younger Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger ( ; AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work, a satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca ...

Ted Hughes Edward James Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He wa ...

' ''

Oedipus Oedipus (, ; "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby bringing disaster to his city and family. ...

'',

Robert David MacDonald Robert David MacDonald (27 August 1929 – 19 May 2004) was a Scottish playwright, translator and theatre director. Early life Robert David MacDonald was born in Elgin, in Morayshire, Scotland on 27 August 1929, the son of a doctor and a toba ...

’s ''Summit Conference'', and Pedro Miguel Rozos’ ''Our Private Life''. As an actor, he performed

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

’s ''Krapp’s Last Tape'' when he was 73. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Poets Theatre.

Awards

Senelick's work in the classroom has been honored with the Oscar Brockett Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education Award of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the Betty Jean Jones Award of the American Theatre and Drama Society as Outstanding Teacher of American Theatre and Drama. His books have received prizes such as the Barnard Hewitt Award of the American Society for Theatre Research, the George Freedley Award of the Theatre Library Association, and the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. His research has been recognized by grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and he has been named a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

, the

College of Fellows of the American Theatre The College of Fellows of the American Theatre is an honorary society of outstanding theatre educators and professional theatre practitioners. Origin The organization was formed in 1965 as a project proposed by members of the American Theatre Ass ...

, and the Berlin Institute for Advanced Studies

Personal life

Laurence Senelick's brother is the neurologist and author Dr. Richard Senelick. Senelick’s life partner was the novelist and screenwriter Michael McDowell; they were together for 30 years until McDowell’s death in 1999.

Selected bibliography

As author

* * * * * * * * * * *

As editor or translator

*Editor and translator (with Sergei Ostrovsky), *Editor and translator, *Editor, *Editor, *Editor, *Editor, *Editor, *Editor and translator, *Editor, *Editor and translator, *Editor and translator,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Senelick, Laurence Tufts University faculty Northwestern University alumni Harvard University alumni Theatrologists Living people 1942 births 20th-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American LGBTQ people Offenbach scholars