Dr. Emily Roxworthy
Founder & Artistic Director
Emily Roxworthy holds degrees in interdisciplinary theatre and drama and performance studies from Cornell University and Northwestern University. Since 2004, she has served on the faculty of the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), as a scholar-artist working at the intersection of theatre history and performance studies, with particular interests in higher education studies, intercultural theatre, digital media, and roleplay training.
From 2016 to 2020, Dr. Roxworthy served as the Provost of Earl Warren College, one of UC San Diego’s seven interdisciplinary undergraduate colleges which serves more than 5000 students from every major in the university, particularly Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). She currently serves as associate dean in the UC San Diego Graduate Division, where her portfolio includes diversity, outreach, access, recruitment, retention, and professional development. Dr. Roxworthy has also served as Interim Associate Vice Chancellor of Faculty Diversity and Equity as well as Chair of the University of California’s academic senate Committee on Affirmative Action and Diversity (representing all ten UC campuses).
Dr. Roxworthy’s first book, The Spectacle of Japanese American Trauma: Racial Performativity in World War II, was published by the University of Hawaii Press in 2008 and received the Barnard Hewitt Award Honorable Mention from the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR). Her second book, The Theatrical Professoriate: Contemporary Higher Education and Its Academic Dramas, was published by Routledge in 2020. As principal investigator, her interdisciplinary research with STEM collaborators has received research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and her scholarly articles have received research awards from ASTR and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE).
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Jesse Marchese
Research & Production Assistant
Jesse Marchese is a second-year PhD student in the department of Theatre & Dance at UC San Diego, where his research focuses on the intersection of queer theory and performance studies. He is also a theatre director and administrator. Previously, Jesse served as Executive Director of Astoria Performing Arts Center in Queens, where he produced New York Innovative Theatre Award and AUDELCO Award winning productions of Follies and Caroline, or Change. Prior to his work at APAC, Jesse served as Associate Director of Off-Broadway’s award-winning Mint Theater Company which produces "lost" or neglected plays. In his six seasons with the Mint, Jesse helped to produce nearly fifteen productions, two of which he also directed: The Lucky One by A.A. Milne and The Fatal Weakness by George Kelly, which was nominated for two 2015 Drama Desk Awards. He received his BA in Theatre Arts at Marymount Manhattan College and his MA in Theatre at CUNY Hunter College, where he was twice awarded with the Vera Mowry Roberts Foundation Fellowship for academic excellence.