LaRonika Thomas is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Washington College, where she teaches theatre history, topics in performance studies, and advises students on their senior capstone projects. She holds a PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her dissertation develops a
theory of civic dramaturgy to analyze performances of urban planning, cultural space and cultural policy, and the role of art and culture in 21st century Chicago. Her other research interests include online archiving and databases in the new play world, site-specific performance, and performance and social justice.

Her chapter “Temple-Swapping in the City: The Spatial Imaginary and Performances of Place-Making in the Work of Theaster Gates” is included in Makeshift Chicago Stages: A Century of Theatre and Performance, published by Northwestern University Press. Her essay, “Digital Dramaturgy and Digital Dramaturgs” is included in The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy. She was the 2016 recipient of the ATDS Graduate Student Travel Award for her paper “Toward a Civic Dramaturgy: Performances of Urban Planning in Chicago from Daniel Burnham to Theaster Gates.”

She was the Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre at Loyola University Maryland for the 2017-2018 year, and has also taught courses at the University of Maryland, Towson University, MICA, Purdue University, Indiana University, and the Community College of Baltimore County.

LaRonika also serves as the LMDA Liaison for Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s (ATHE) Dramaturgy Focus Group (DRFG). For six years she served as the Vice President for Regional Activity for LMDA, and for two years as the co-VP of Membership. She also previously served three terms as the Electronic Communications Co-Chair for ATHE’s DRFG, and as the graduate representative for the American Theatre and Drama Society (ATDS) and ATHE’s DRFG for three years.

A professional dramaturg, producer, and writer, LaRonika worked in arts education, literary management, and dramaturgy in Chicago and in the Baltimore/DC area before returning to school for her doctorate. She has worked in various capacities with the Goodman Theatre, the Public Theater, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Center Stage, The Playwright’s Center, The Neo-Futurists, and Writers’ Theatre, among others. Her work has been funded by LMDA, the University of Maryland, and the City of Chicago.