Shelley Orr is a dramaturg and theatre scholar, specializing in 20th and 21st century theatre. She is currently writing a book on theatre and memory. With her co-editors, she is editing a collection entitled In Memoriam. She is Associate Professor and Head of the MA in Theatre Arts at San Diego State University where she advises dramaturgy students on main stage productions. She joined LMDA in 2002, co-edited LMDA Review, served on the LMDA Executive Committee, served as president from 2008-2010, and organized conferences in San Diego (2008), Washington D.C. (2009), and Banff (2010).
Shelley has a BS in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, an MFA in Dramaturgy from UCSD, and a PhD in Theatre from the UCI/UCSD joint program. Prior to SDSU, she taught at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Arizona. Her professional credits include dramaturging or providing dramaturgical support for the San Diego Rep, The Old Globe, and Mo`olelo Theatre Company. She dramaturged Marguerite Duras’s Savannah Bay at New York’s Classic Stage Company, directed by Les Waters and starring Kathleen Chalfant. She dramaturged Beckett’s Happy Days, directed by Robert Woodruff at La Jolla Playhouse; this production had a run at PS 122 in New York.
Her article on Duras’s India Song appears in Review: The Journal of Dramaturgy (2019). Her publications have appeared in Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, TheatreForum, American Theatre, Theatron, and Paroles gelees. She has regularly presented at the annual meetings of ASTR and ATHE. She chairs the Dramaturgy Debut Panel at ATHE. Her most recent peer-reviewed article appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Comparative Drama.