Madison Mae Williams
Assistant Professor of Theatre - Theatre History and Performance Studies
Contact
- Office: Bldg. 45, Rm. 209
- Email: mwill227@calpoly.edu
- Pronouns: she, her, hers
Education
- PhD, Theatre and Drama, UC San Diego
- BA, Interdisciplinary Concentration in Musical Theatre, Poetry, and African Studies, Hampshire College
Course Summary
- TH 305 Topics in Diversity on the American Stage: Black Power/Arts/Performance
About Madison Mae Williams
Madison Mae Williams (she/her) is a dramaturg, director, and scholar. Born and raised on Cape Cod, she received her PhD in Theatre and Drama from UC San Diego, and BA concentrating in musical theatre, poetry, and Africana studies from Hampshire College. Her dissertation project focused on alienation in countercultural performance in the Long Sixties. Maddie’s other research areas include American musical theatre, the Black Power/Arts movements, horror and the uncanny, performance for children, and the films of Stanley Kubrick and John Cassavetes.
Maddie has worked with La Jolla Playhouse, the Old Globe, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Cygnet Theatre, Diversionary Theatre, Dartmouth College, the University of San Diego, the New Cosmopolitans, the Playwrights Realm, Chautauqua Theatre Company, and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. She is passionate about theatre work that is accessible, radical, and increases visibility and representation for people of marginalized identities. Maddie is a proud member of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and the Black Theatre Network. madisonmaewilliams.com
Publications:
Book Chapters
- “‘Violence is a Very Horrible Thing’: Brechtian Alienation Effect in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange,” A Critical Companion to Stanley Kubrick, edited by Elsa Columbani. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020.
Reviews
- The Devils and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Devil’s Advocates book review for Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 31.2, spring 2021.
Conference Papers
- “Making Flippy Floppy: Performance and Autistic Erotics in Stop Making Sense,” Popular Culture Association National Conference, New Orleans, April 2025.
- “Can You Dig It?: The Monkees, the Alienation Effect, and the ‘Epic Album’ Head,” Humber Liberal Arts at Toronto International Festival of Authors, Toronto, November 2019.