Headshot of Dr.Dorothy J. Holland

Dr. Dorothy J. Holland

Associate Professor of Theatre and Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Advisory Board Member
  • Profile

    Dorothy Holland is Associate Professor of Theatre and  Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. Dr. Holland teaches a range of courses: Production Studies, Theatre History, Advanced Acting, Physical Theatre, Staging Gender, and First Year Seminars.  Her research explores the intersections of performance, feminist theory, critical race studies, and contemporary theatre practice. 

    Holland has been a professional actor and director for over 40 years; she has performed leading roles on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in national tours, and in regional theatres throughout the country.  Since she came to the University of Richmond in 1999, Holland has directed a twenty main-stage productions, including Appropriate (Branded Jacobs-Jenkins); Caroline, or Change (Tony Kushner & Jeanine Tesori);  Top Girls (Caryl Churchill); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Brecht); Spring Awakening (Sater & Shiek);  Love and Information (Caryl Churchill);  All My Sons (Arthur Miller); How I Learned to Drive (Paula Vogel); Mother Courage and Her Children (Bertolt Brecht);  The Skin of Our Teeth (Thornton Wilder); The Madwoman of Chaillot (Giraudoux), Trojan Women: A Love Story (Charles Mee); and Rent (Jonathan Larson).  She has alos   performed leading roles in several local productions: Prospero in The Tempest;  Emily Stilson in Arthur Kopit's Wings; Evelyn in Tales of the Lost Formicans; Ionesco’s The Chairs; and three productions with Barksdale Theatre: The Laramie Project, The Exact Center of the Universe, and the premier of Alex Finlayson's Misfits.  Dorothy trained with Uta Hagen at HB Studio in New York, and Physical Theatre training with Marcello Magni and Stefan Metz (Complicite).

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    • Awards

      Distinguished Educator Award, 2005


      Excellence in Acting Award. Rainbow International Theatre Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia, for THE CHAIRS (Ionesco), directed by Paolo Emilio Landi, 2007

    • Presentations

      International Directors Symposium. DAH Research Center, Belgrade, Serbia. June 2010.


      AiR Project. Queen’s College, University of London. March, 2010.


      International Directors Symposium. Spoleto, Italy.  July 2008.


      Public Radio International Special, "I Saw Three Ships." Broadcast aired on NPR  24-25 December 2007.


      International Directors Symposium. Spoleto, Italy. 18 July - 6 August, 2006.


      Shakespeare’s Cross-Gender Game: Women Get into the Act. University of New Hampshire Women’s Studies Program. Durham, NH, March 2005.


      History, Method, and Meaning: Directing Mother Courage. University of Richmond Faculty Forum, 2001.


      Figuring Gender in the Black Crook: Representations of Gender on the Nineteenth-Century American Stage. Southeast Theatre Conference. Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, VA, 2001.


      Cross-Gender Casting in Educational Theatre: Perils and Promise. Association for Theatre in Higher Education National Conference, Chicago, 2001.

    • Memberships

      Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers


      Actors Equity Association


      Screen Actors Guild


      Dramatists Guild


      Association of Theatre in Higher Education

  • Selected Publications
    Journal Articles

    “The Old Buzzard: Figuring Gender in the Black Crook,”  Theatre Symposium. Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 2002.

    Book Chapters

    "Bodies at Play: A General Economy of Performance." Reading Bataille Now. Shannon Winnubst, ed. Indiana University Press, 2006.