• Faculty

  • Joe E. Jeffreys

    Part-Time Lecturer, Theater

    Email
    jeffreyj@newschool.edu

    Office Location
    A - 66 West 12th Street

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    Joe E. Jeffreys

    Profile

    Joe E. Jeffreys is a drag historian. He produces Drag Show Video Verite, a multi-platform project capturing, preserving and screening the moving image record of the faces and places of NYC’s vibrant drag scenes past and present, famous and forgotten. He has published in book anthologies, encyclopedias, the popular press and academic journals from Time Out New York and The Village Voice to The Drama Review, Theatre History Studies and Women & Performance. His video work has been awarded funding from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Jerome Foundation and screened at museums, galleries and festivals worldwide including the Tate Modern in London, the Façade Video Festival in Bulgaria, MOMA, The Museum of Arts and Design and as part of the opening of the new Whitney Museum of American Art.  Jeffreys has taught theatre studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Drama Department, Purchase and Stony Brook University. He has served on the board of directors for Dirty Looks, the committee for PS 122’s Ethyl Eichelberger Award and worked as dramaturg for numerous downtown and off-Broadway productions including the world premiere of Tennessee Willam’s last full length play, In Masks Outrageous and Austere.

    Degrees Held

    Ph.D.--Performance Studies, New York University.

    M.F.A.--Dramaturgy, SUNY Stony Brook University.

    BA--English, Wake Forest University.

    Recent Publications

    ”Transfixed by Rose Wood.” The Live Art Almanac: Volume 3. London: Oberon Books, 2013, pp. 153-155.

     

     

    “The Soundplay’s the Thing: A Formal Analysis of John (aka Lypsinka) Epperson’s Queer Performance Texts,” in James Fischer (ed), We Will Be Citizen’s: Essays on Contemporary Gay and Lesbian Playwrights. Jefferson, N.C.: MacFarland, 2008, pp. 177-184.

     

    Performances and Appearances

    Contributing Videographer.  Sisters of the Wicked Wig, documentary on the Bushwig drag festival, directed by Adam Golub and Gayatri Kaul, 2014.

     

    Historical Consultant and Talking Head, In Search of Avery Willard, documentary on pioneering gay filmmaker, produced by Ira Sachs, directed by Cary Kehayan, 2012.

     

     

    Drag Show Video Verite--Tate Modern, London, England, 2011.

     

    Research Interests

    Drag, Burlesque, Experimental Performance, Popular Entertainments.

    Awards And Honors

    Jerome Foundation grant.

    Lower Manhattan Cultural Council grants.

    Future Courses

    RuPaul's Drag & Its Impact
    LTHR 3216, Spring 2025

    Past Courses

    RuPaul's Drag & Its Impact
    LTHR 3216, Spring 2024

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