Dr. Christiana Molldrem Harkulich is a critically acclaimed Director and Dramaturg who works across professional and educational theatre. She has developed world premieres of new works at several universities. She is committed to nurturing artists and utilizing her skills as a director and dramaturg to bring fresh, vital and important stories to the stage.
Prior to graduate work, Dr. Christiana founded and ran To The Wall Productions in Philadelphia where she created gender bending pieces that played with the classics. Her production of Sheridan's The Rivals (pictured in the header) as a drag comedy was named one of the top productions of that year. In graduate school, Dr. Christiana's artistic practice remains committed to working collaboratively and creating performances that make us feel deeply and perhaps see the world anew. Some of her favorite recent projects include Kyooreasade at the Bunker Arts International Performing Arts Festival- an installation performance inspired by Erin Morgenstern's novel The Night Circus; and Deceptive Cadence-a multi-media documentary performance piece featuring a string quartet about the lives and music of Russian composers under Stalin. Currently, she is a board member and an artistic director of outreach with The Station Theatre in Urbana, Il.
Dr. Christiana has a decade of teaching experience in liberal arts programs at a variety of levels. She's developed courses on Dramaturgy; Social Justice and the Stage; Performing an Indigenous Present: Native American Theatre and Performance in the 20th century; and Crossing Global Stages: Gender, Drag, and Performance in the Contemporary World. A student from her Social Justice and the Stage class wrote "This class was amazing, and I’d take more theatre classes like this if I’d known theatre classes were this cool…. I guess I have become a fan while learning history at the same time." Her classes blend theory, practice, and literature to create an inclusive and student-centered environment. A student in her dramaturgy course wrote: "Dramaturgy was something entirely new to me, and even though it fascinated me, I thought that it would prove out of my range of capability. This class proved me wrong and I am leaving more confident in my skills and in myself as a whole." At Miami University, outside of her teaching she built a dramaturgy program that supported the entire season and chaired the Independent Artist Series where students produced their own work.
Dr. Christiana's research interests include: Indigenous Performance, Decolonization, Decolonial Theory, Border Theory, Drag performance, musical theatre, and Professional Wrestling. Her manuscript project, Performing Past and Present: Representational Politics and Indigenous Women Performers 1890-1940, builds from her award winning dissertation."Standing Between Reservation and Nation: Indigenous performance in North America After the End of the Indian Wars." The manuscript focuses on two performers Te Ata Fisher (Chickasaw/Choctaw) and Princess White Deer (Mohawk/Kanienʼkehá ka). Her scholarship has been published at USHistoryScene.com, and she has a chapter in the edited collection Identity in Professional Wrestling: Essays on Nationality, Race and Gender(McFarland Publishing), and Contemporaneity. She co-edited a special section of Theatre History Studies on Hemispheric Historiography that came out in 2020.
Dr. Christiana Molldrem Harkulich received her M.A., and PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in Theatre and Performance Studies, and her BA from Wellesley College. She is trained in Shakespearean Acting and Alexander Technique. She currently teaches in the Theatre department at Eastern Illinois University, where she is also affiliated faculty in Film Studies and Women and Gender Studies.
Dr. Christiana is also committed to slow fashion and has spent the last few years building a sewing practice. She primarily wears handmade garments. She documents her progress on her Instagram @christianaopus. She currently lives in Urbana-Champaign with her spouse and dog.
