Biography
DeAnna Toten Beard serves as Graduate Program Director for Baylor's MFA in Directing program. Dr. Toten Beard is a dramaturg and theatre historian with research interests in early twentieth-century American theatre. She is also interested in arts education and interdisciplinary teaching.
Dr. Toten Beard earned a Bachelor of Arts from Mary Washington College (now University of Mary Washington) in Virginia, where she also became a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She later graduated from the State University of New York at Stony Brook with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Dramaturgy. Her Ph.D. in Theatre History, Literature, and Theory is from Indiana University, Bloomington. Before joining Baylor's faculty, Dr. Toten Beard taught at The University of North Carolina-Wilmington.
Dr. Toten Beard's publications include “Susan Glaspell Goes to Law School: Adventures in Reading Trifles with Criminal Practice Students†(Texas Theatre Journal, 2008); “Artisan to Artist: The Impact of Gallery Exhibitions of New Stagecraft in the U.S., 1914-1919†(New England Theatre Journal, 2007); “‘The Power of Woman’s Influence’: Nineteenth-Century Temperance Theatricality and the Drama of Nellie H. Bradley†(Theatre History Studies, 2006) and the chapter "American Experimentalism, American Expressionism, and Early O'Neill" in A Companion to Twentieth Century American Drama.
