Greg Pierotti
- Associate Professor
- Member of the Graduate Faculty
- Assistant Professor, Applied Intercultural Arts Research - GIDP
- (520) 621-7800
- Louise Foucar Marshall Bldg., Rm. 246
- Tucson, AZ 85721
- pierotti@arizona.edu
Biography
Greg Pierotti has been working professionally in the theater in New York for the past twenty-five years as a writer, director, performer and teacher. His areas of expertise are voice training for the actor, theatrical devising, playwriting and dramaturgy. With the New York company, Tectonic Theater Project, he has co-created a number of critically acclaimed plays including The Laramie Project, Laramie: 10 Years Later and The People’s Temple. His current project, B More, is a new play, which looks at race and police violence in the US through the story of Freddie Gray, a black man who died in Baltimore City Police Custody. His early preparatory work has certain similarities to anthropological research and all the theatrical works that he has created are drawn from transcribed interviews and empirical research gathered in the field. When researching an event that will make up the central narrative of a play, he spends as much time as he can among the affected community conducting interviews and participating in community events. To create The Laramie Project he conducted research in the community over a period of two years and for The People’s Temple he spent 4 years developing connections and relationships among the community of the survivors of the Jonestown Massacre. His approach to narrative is often ethnographic in its nature as well. Rather than creating a coherent linear plot as much conventional theater does, his plays often create multiple and less cohesive narrative through lines from multiple stake holders’ perspectives. This particular approach to theatrical dramaturgies led him to a fruitful collaboration with UC Davis anthropologist Cristiana Giordano. Together over the last several years Giordano and Pierotti have been engaged in an interdisciplinary exploration between his theatrical research and devising techniques and her ethnographic research and writing practices. Thus far they have conducted scholarly research into compositional practices, collaboration, narrative and affect, which resulted in papers they have presented at anthropological conferences at Cornell, Rutgers, UC San Diego, and at the national conference of the American Anthropological Association. Their paper Dramaturgy will be published by Cultural Anthropology. Together they have taught graduate seminars at UC Davis and academic workshops around the world. Pierotti has conducted extensive field research in Baltimore to compliment their shared methodological research. They are currently developing another theater piece, Unstories, based on Giordano’s field research at Lampedusa, Italy centered on the European refugee crisis.
Degrees
- M.F.A. Theater Arts
- University of California, Davis, Davis, California, United States
- B More
- B.A. The Arts (Writing Performance)
- SUNY, Empire State, New York, New York, United States
Work Experience
- UC Davis (2016 - Ongoing)
- UC Davis (2014 - 2016)
- Freelance (1998 - Ongoing)
- Tectonic Theater Project (1996 - 2017)
- Tectonic Theater Project (1996 - 2013)
Awards
- U Penn: Center of Experimental Ethnography visiting fellow.
- Center of Experimental Ethnography, Fall 2021
- Creative Capital Award
- Creative Capital, Spring 2021 (Award Finalist)
- George H Davis Travel Fellowhip
- UA - Research Discovery and Innovation, Fall 2017
Licensure & Certification
- Assistant Teacher, Fitzmaurice VoiceWork (2017)
Interests
Research
Voice and Speech, Anthropology, Affect Theory, Structural Violence, Playwriting and Theatrical Devising, Politics of Narrative.
Teaching
Fitzmaurice Voice work, Theatrical Devising, Dramaturgy.
Courses
2024-25 Courses
-
Dissertation
AIAR 920 (Fall 2024)
2023-24 Courses
-
Dissertation
AIAR 920 (Spring 2024) -
Theatrical Devising
TAR 361 (Spring 2024) -
Workshop Performance
TAR 497W (Spring 2024) -
Collaborative Play Devel
TAR 462 (Fall 2023) -
Dissertation
AIAR 920 (Fall 2023) -
Performance
TAR 497F (Fall 2023) -
Workshop Performance
TAR 497W (Fall 2023)
2022-23 Courses
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Practicum
TAR 494 (Spring 2023) -
Theatrical Devising
TAR 361 (Spring 2023) -
Collaborative Play Devel
TAR 462 (Fall 2022) -
Practicum
TAR 494 (Fall 2022) -
Theatre+Cult II:Modern
TAR 603 (Fall 2022)
2021-22 Courses
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Acting for Everyone
TAR 100 (Spring 2022) -
Clq in Career Development
TAR 395A (Spring 2022) -
Independent Study
TAR 599 (Spring 2022) -
Theatrical Devising
TAR 361 (Spring 2022)
2020-21 Courses
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Audience Development
TAR 431 (Spring 2021) -
Independent Study
TAR 499 (Spring 2021) -
Theatre+Cult II:Modern
TAR 603 (Spring 2021) -
Collaborative Play Devel
TAR 462 (Fall 2020) -
Honors Independent Study
TAR 499H (Fall 2020) -
Improvisation
TAR 262 (Fall 2020) -
Independent Study
TAR 499 (Fall 2020)
2019-20 Courses
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Clq in Career Development
TAR 395A (Spring 2020) -
Collaborative Play Devel
TAR 462 (Fall 2019) -
Improvisation
TAR 262 (Fall 2019) -
Workshop Performance
TAR 497W (Fall 2019)
2018-19 Courses
-
Adv Topics in Theatre History
TAR 496A (Summer I 2019) -
Devised Perf & the Phys Body
TAR 362 (Spring 2019) -
Improvisation
TAR 262 (Spring 2019) -
Independent Study
TAR 499 (Spring 2019) -
Independent Study
TAR 599 (Spring 2019) -
Workshop Performance
TAR 497W (Spring 2019) -
Experimental Dramaturgy
TAR 662 (Fall 2018) -
Honors Thesis
TAR 498H (Fall 2018) -
Improvisation
TAR 262 (Fall 2018) -
Practicum
TAR 494 (Fall 2018) -
Workshop Performance
TAR 497W (Fall 2018)
2017-18 Courses
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Collaborative Play Devel
TAR 462 (Spring 2018) -
Honors Thesis
TAR 498H (Spring 2018) -
Workshop Performance
TAR 497W (Spring 2018) -
Workshop Performance
TAR 597W (Spring 2018) -
Contemporary Trends
TAR 696A (Fall 2017) -
Workshop Performance
TAR 497W (Fall 2017)
Scholarly Contributions
Books
- Pierotti, G., Kaufman, M., Pitts, B., Fondakowski, L., Paris, A., Simpkins, K., Maize, J., & Barrow, S. (2018). Moment Work. New York: Vintage Books.
Chapters
- Pierotti, R. G., & Giordano, C. (2022). How to get caught in the empirical material. In An Ethnographic Inventory: Field Devices for Anthropological Inquiries(p. 25). London: Routledge: Theorizing Ethnography Series.More infoInvited to contribute a chapter for a collected inventory of experimental and multimodal research approaches. Work on chapter began in December of 2021 with first draft due February 28, 2022. Release date May 9, 2023
Journals/Publications
- Pierotti, G., & Giordano, C. (2018). Dramaturgy. Cultural Anthtropology, Web Platform: https://culanth.org/conversations/17-theorizing-the-contemporary, 2.More infoThis peer reviewed article is accepted with no further revisions required and will be published in March 2018 on the Journal’s web platform “Theorizing the Contemporary.” It is part of an anthology entitled “Keywords in Ethnography and Design.”
Presentations
- Pierotti, R. G., & Giordano, C. (2021, Spring). Getting Caught: A Collaboration On and Off Stage Between Theater and Anthropology. 15th national symposium of theater and performing arts in Academe. Washington and Lee University/on-line: The Office of the Dean of the College, the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology..More infoConference paper presentation
- Pierotti, G. (2018, 2018-05-16 through 2018-05-20). Contrapunteo - Moving Towards Ethnographic Hallucinations. Casca-Cuba. Santiago De Cuba: Canadian Anthropology Society.More infoThis was a 10 minute paper followed by a round table discussion about the use of voice in theater and ethnographic field research.
- Pierotti, R. (2017, July). “Practice and Ethics in Dramatizing the Real”. Hong Kong Documentary Festival: Theater and Society. Hong Kong: Goethe institute of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Academy of the Arts, and Pants Theater.
- Pierotti, R., & Giordano, C. (2017, November). "Getting Caught: Collaborations On and Off Stage Between Theater and Anthropology”. The American Anthropological Associations annual conference.. Washington DC: American Anthropological Association.
- Pierotti, R., & Giordano, C. (2017, October). “Un-stories: Dramatizing Anti-Crisis”. Conference: Visual Culture In and Out of Crisis. Rutgers University: Sponsored by 11 Rutgers departments and organized by the department of Italian.
Creative Productions
- Pierotti, R. G., & Giordano, C. (2021. "Affect Theater". Rainey Auditorium. University of Pennsylvania/on-line: School of Arts and Sciences. https://www.centerforexperimentalethnography.org/affecttheatre.htmlMore infoPerformative presentation of the research and writing methodology, Affect Theater, that I have developed in collaboration with anthropologist Cristiana Giordano, and a presentation of the theoretical and performative work developed by seminar participants using the method.
- Pierotti, R. (2018. Unstories: Disrupting the Narrative Urge. Displacements: The 2018 Biennial meeting of the Society for Cultural anthropology.. virtual conference.: Society for Cultural Anthropology.
Creative Works
- Affect Theater; Website; September 2021; Affect Theater is a website where viewers can learn about my research and writing methodology of the same name, and can explore publications, presentations, and podcasts that I have developed with my collaborator, Crisitiana Giordano. They can also learn more about works that were developed using the technique. The website is also the host for the images and sounds that can readers can link to, using QR codes embedded in chapter 2 of my current book manuscript sescribed elsewhere on this site.
- Chapter 2: Unstories: Centering the Minor.; Mixed media/interactive text; under peer review at University of Toronto Press; Affect Theater; Chapter 2 for the book and proposal, Unstories: Centering Minor Stories, which is an illustrated and interactive chapter. It was 100% completed in 2021, and has an accompanying website that hosts the links for the QR codes embedded in the chapter.
