aviva [dot] neff [at] gmail.com
Aviva Helena Neff
DR. AVIVA HELENA NEFF
avivaneff.com
WORK EXPERIENCE
Director of Youth and Community Learning Columbus College of Art and Design
(2021—Present)
Columbus, OH
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Adjunct Faculty
Otterbein University
(Department of Theatre and Dance 2021-Present)
Westerville, OH
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Graduate Teaching Associate The Ohio State University
(Department of Theatre 2016-2021)
Columbus, OH
Arts Department Substitute Lincoln Senior High School
(2015-2016)
Ypsilanti, MI
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Theatre: Performance, History, Theory, 2021
The Ohio State University
MA Applied Theatre:
Drama in Educational, Community & Social Contexts, 2015
Goldsmiths College
B.A. History, 2014
The College of Wooster
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AWARDS, GRANTS, AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Huntington Bank STEAM Funding For Youth Arts, 2022-2023
Awarded to support STEAM program development at CCAD for low-income youth, $100,000
SMARTColumbus & City of Columbus Department of Technology STEAM Funding, 2021-2023
Awarded to support STEAM program development at CCAD for low-income youth, $75,000
CCAD 2022 President’s Award
Awarded to one individual biennially for distinguished professional achievements
CoverMyMeds STEAM Funding, 2022,
Awarded to support STEAM program development at CCAD for low-income youth, $20,000
The Ohio State University, 2019-2020
“Discovery Themes Initiative” Team Fellowship. Awarded to support interdisciplinary research during the final 2 years of Ph.D. $24,150.
The Ohio State University, 2019-2020
Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and Scholarship (AGGRS). Awarded to projects based on academic merit and qualifications of applicant. $3,000
The Ohio State University, 2019-2020
Sesquicentennial Scholars program. Awarded to students who represent the future of Ohio State’s legacy as a Land Grant University. $3,000
HistoryMatters/Back To the Future “Sallie Bingham Grant,” 2018.
This national grant was awarded to projects that staged historical women playwrights in accessible settings. $2,000
The Ohio State University Writing Across the Curriculum, 2016
“Outstanding Teacher Award: Honorable Mention,”
2018
Goldsmiths College, 2015
“From Oppressed to Possessed: Performance Protest as a Means of Overcoming “Discovery” and Diaspora” Thesis and Degree awarded with Distinction
The College of Wooster
“A Better and Truer Self: the Harris Brothers in Reconstructed North Carolina” Thesis and Degree awarded with Honors.
The College of Wooster, 2013
Allardice-Wise Scholarship Recipient
The College of Wooster, 2010
Clarence Beecher Allen Scholarship Recipient
RESEARCH INTERESTS AND SPECIALTIES
Arts Education, Administration, and Policy • Applied Theatre • Intimacy Direction • Black American & Mixed Race Studies • Practice-as-Research • Archival Research • Playwriting • Performance Studies • Directing • Inclusive Pedagogy • Collective Creation • Adaptation
PUBLICATIONS
“Do you feel far from home?”: Explorations of Grief, Lineage, and Mothering in Autobiographical Applied Theatre,” in Applied Theatre and Gender Justice, edited by Lisa S. Brenner and Evenlyn Diaz Cruz. Routledge, 2024.
“Liberating the Classroom: Academic Theatre and Change Making,” in Applied Theatre and Racial Justice: Radical Imaginings for Just Communities, edited by Eunice Ferreira and Lisa Biggs. Routledge, 2024.
“Revisiting Wilson’s “The Ground on Which I Stand” in the Wake of Black Lives Matter,” in August Wilson in Context, edited by Khalid Y. Long, and Isaiah M. Wooden. Cambridge, 2024.
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‘One of a kind, no category:’ Coding Race, Gender, and Excess in Six!,” in Contemporary British Musicals, edited by Clare Chandler and Gus Rowland. Bloomsbury, 2024.
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“Black Squares, White Faces: Cancel Culture and Protest in the Age of Digital Blackface,” in Acts of Rebellion, Activism, and Solidarity in Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance, edited by DeRon S. Williams, Khalid Long, and Martine Green-Rogers. Bloomsbury, 2023.
“Honi soit qui mal y pense:” Succession, Race, and Gender in the Demi-Monde of Storyville, New Orleans,” in “Raceing Queens,” special issue of The Scholar and the Feminist Online, edited by Treva B. Lindsey, Mia Kafantaris, and Sonja Drimmer. Barnard College, 2022
“Michael R. Jackson’s Surreality,” in 50 Key Figures in Contemporary US Queer Theatre, edited by Jimmy Noriega and Jordan Schildcrout. Routledge, 2022.
Review: “America in the Round: Capital, Race, and Nation at Washington D.C.'s Arena Stage,” in
Theatre Annual, edited by Ann Folino White and Daniel Ciba. The College of William and Mary, 2021.
“Lost Voices in Black Theatre,” Mint Theatre Company, 2021—2022.
“What, to the Descendants of Enslaved Africans, is Juneteenth?” Interzine, 2020.
“Playwright Biographies” HistoryMatters, historymatters.com, 2020
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“Blood, Earth, Water: Towards a Feminist Autoethnographic Approach”
Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Austin, TX, 2023
“The Monstrous Mulatto: Performances of Race, Horror, and Revenge in Victor Sejour's Le Mulâtre”
American Society for Theatre Research, New Orleans, LA, 2022
“Liberating the Classroom: Academic Theatre and Change Making”
Black Theatre Network, Detroit, MI, 2022
“For Us, By Us: Inclusive Pedgagogical Practices”
Black Theatre Network, Virtual Conference, 2021
“Field Conversations: Selecting Inclusive Seasons”
“Lulu White and the Demimondaine of Storyville”
American Society for Theatre Research, Virtual Conference, 2020
“Blood, Earth, Water,” Mixed Race Pedagogical Approaches”
Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Virtual Conference, 2020
“Theatricality and Thanatourism: a Reflective Response on Autoethnography”
American Society for Theatre Research, Arlington, VA, 2019
“Confronting an Aesthetics of Absence: Beyoncé Knowles, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and Kara Walker’s Performative Remembrances”
Comparative Drama Conference, Orlando, FL, 2019
“Revolutionary Wake Work: a Response to Christina Sharpe”
Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference, Boston, MA, 2018
“Silence or violence: the choice is yours.” The Disruptive Power of Violence in Sarah Kane’s Crave”
American Society for Theatre Research, Atlanta, GA, 2017
“Experimental Collectivities Collaborations, and (Dis)embodied Digital Experiences”
Working group and performance making laboratory centered around digital theatre making.
Hemispheric Institute’s Graduate Student Initiative Convergence Toronto, ON, 2017
“Dismantling with 21st Century Tools: #BlackLivesMatter and Livestreaming Trauma”
Paper presented in the Black Theatre Association at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference, Las Vegas, NV, 2017
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Adjunct Faculty Otterbein University Department of Theatre and Dance
Spring 2022, 2023 Viewpoints and Composition
Fall 2021 Directing (Writing Intensive)
Graduate Teaching Associate The Ohio State University Department of Theatre
Fall 2018- Spring 2020 Theatre 2367.03 Criticizing Television
Fall 2017- Fall 2020 Theatre 2367.02 African American Theatre History
Summer 2018 RA/TA Summer Abroad in London
INVITED LECTURES
January 2024, Denison University. Professional Development Workshop for High School Theatre Educators
September 2023, The Ohio State University Dept. Theatre, Film, & Media Arts
“Women on Stage and Screen”
February 2022, Otterbein University Dept. of Theatre and Dance
“Intimacy, Consent, and Safety.”
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November 2021, The Ohio State University Dept. of English, “the Octoroon(s): From Boucicault to Jacobs-Jenkins
November 2019 College of Wooster Dept. of Theatre and Dance
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October, 2019, Gateway Film Center, “The Tethered of the Earth:” Post-colonial Readings of Jordan Peele’s Us.
September 2019 Lewis and Clark College, “Theatricality and Thanatourism”
SELECTED PRODUCTION CREDITS
9-to-5
Director, Otterbein University, 2024
Fairview
Director, Available Light Theatre, 2024
She Kills Monsters
Director, Denison University, 2023
The Wolves
Director, Contemporary American Theatre Company (CATCO), 2023
Bright Star
Intimacy Coordinator, Otterbein University, 2023
Slave Play
Intimacy Coordinator, Short North Stage, 2023
The Happy Elf
Director, Columbus Children’s Theatre, 2022
Black Comedy
Director, Otterbein University, 2022
Spring Awakening
Intimacy Coordinator, Short North Stage, 2022
Little Shop of Horrors
Intimacy Coordinator, Short North Stage, 2022
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder
Intimacy Coordinator, Otterbein University, 2021
Blood Earth Water
Playwright & Actor, The Ohio State University, 2021
As You Like It
Director, The Ohio State University, 2020
Once Upon the Oval
Dramaturg, The Ohio State University, 2020(canceled due to COVID19)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Lysander, The Ohio State University, 2019
The Women of Ciudad Juarez
Performer, Teatro Travieso (on tour since 2014)
Sunday Morning in the South
Director, “I, Too, Sing America Festival,” Columbus, OH, 2018
WORKSHOP FACILITATION & CERTIFICATIONS
Intimacy Coordinator Intimacy Coordinators of Color, 2021
Sojourn Theatre Summer Institute Center for Performance and Civic Practice,
Sojourn Theatre, 2021
Creating Community Columbus College of Art and Design, 2019
Westside Stories Third Way Café, Columbus, OH, 2016-2018
Be the Street The Ohio State University, 2016-2020
Women of Ciudad Juarez Missouri Southern State University, 2016 & Universite de Caldas, 2015
Turning a Little Further The Young Vic Theatre
Cops in the Head Eastern Michigan University, 2015
Nonverbal Clowning Goldsmiths College, 2015
List(less) Goldsmiths College, 2015
Devising with Personal Narratives Greenwich—Lewisham Young People’s Theatre, 2015
Theatre Half-Term Camp Greenwich—Lewisham Young People’s Theatre, 2015
SERVICE
Association for Theatre in Higher Education
Advocacy Committee (2022-2023)
2023 Conference Planning Committee (2022-2023)
Black Theatre Association:
Member-at-Large (2021-2024)
Graduate Representative (2016-2018)
American Society for Theatre Research
Field Conversations (2022-2024)
The Ohio State University:
Council for Graduate Students (CGS) Representative (2019-2020), Committee Chair for the Council on Academic Affairs (2020)
Performance Studies Working Group
President (2018-2019)
Vice President (2017-18, 2020)
The Graduate Theatre Syndicate
Secretary (2017-18)
OSU Theatre Diversity Task Force (2017)
College of Wooster:
Alpha Psi Omega, the National Theatre Honor Society
Phi Alpha Theta, the National History Honor Society