Laura MacDonald

I am a theatre historian and American Studies scholar. I studied journalism and theatre at the University of King’s College (Halifax) prior to earning an MSc in International & European Politics at the University of Edinburgh, and an MA in Drama at the University of Toronto.

I received my PhD in American Studies from the University of East Anglia. My thesis, Selling What People Need: How the Modern Broadway Musical Capitalized on Economic, Social and Political Change, expands musical theatre historiography by documenting the form's nature as an intersection of art and commerce. Articles based on chapters from my thesis have been published in the New England Theatre Journal and The Journal of American Drama and Theatre.

Prior to joining SCAFM, I was a lecturer at the University of Groningen (Netherlands). In 2013 I participated in the 2013 summer school session on World Theatre at the Mellon School of Theatre and Performance Research at Harvard University. I am the conference planner for the Music Theatre/Dance Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.