Presented by the Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program, this year's Person of the Year is Martha S. LoMonaco, PhD, professor, author, and resident director of Theatre Fairfield.
Since 1994, the Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Program has annually recognized a woman on campus who has made extraordinary contributions to women’s issues. The Person of the Year Award was founded by Johanna Garvey, PhD, associate professor of English, and Lucy Katz, PhD, professor emeritus, for whom the award was renamed in 2007.
This year's Lucy Katz Award recipient, Marti LoMonaco, PhD, will be given the award at a ceremony and dinner on Wednesday, Nov. 9 from 5-7 p.m. at Alumni House on campus. R.S.V.P. to wgss@fairfield.edu.
Dr. LoMonaco was selected for the award because of her feminist approach to theatre, her innovative pedagogy, her countless contributions to the arts on campus, and her fierce dedication to the transformative power of the stage.
“There is no more fitting recipient of our Person of the Year Award than Dr. Marti LoMonaco,” said Shannon Kelley, PhD, program director of WGSS and associate professor of English. “She has steadfastly taught WGSS theatre courses, contributed to the arts on campus, and directed groundbreaking, social justice activist theatre at Fairfield.”
Marti LoMonaco, PhD.
“At the Lucy Katz Award ceremony next week, we will spend the evening honoring her extraordinary legacy," Dr. Kelley continued. "Marti is a testimony to the power of just one woman to change the world around her, and an inspiration to us all.”
Dr. LoMonaco is a professor of theatre, an author, and the resident director of Theatre Fairfield. Her most recent productions include: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Ann Carson’s adaptation of Sophokle’s Antigone, Rachel Crothers’s A Man’s World, and Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.
Her most recent book is titled Summer Stock: An American Theatrical Phenomenon. She is also the editor of “Theatre Exhibitions,” volume 33 of Performing Arts Resources (Fall 2017), and since 2010, editor of New England Theatre in Review, for New England Theatre Journal. She also guest-curated the exhibition Bravo! A Century of Theatre in Fairfield County, for the Fairfield Museum and History Center in 2011, which showcased Fairfield County’s rich history and appreciation of theatrical arts.
For more than 30 years, Dr. LoMonaco has taught in the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Fairfield, leading courses such as directing, world theatre, American drama, American women playwrights, acting, and graduate American Studies courses. Dr. LoMonaco — affectionately known by her students as “Dr. L” — is also the past recipient of the Louis A. Rachow Distinguished Service in Performing Arts Librarianship Award in 2013 from the Theatre Library Association. She is a Kripalu Certified Yoga instructor, which is a part of actor-training in many of her productions, and she holds a doctorate in performance studies from New York University.
Learn more about the Lucy Katz Award and the WGSS Program at ¶¶Òô»ÆƬapp.
