about

Dr. Kristyl D. Tift is a performing artist, educator, and scholar. She holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies (Theory, History, and Criticism) and an Advanced Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Georgia; an MFA in Acting (The New School/Actors Studio Drama School); and a BA in Theatre with a Music Minor from Georgia Southern University. She is an Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing in the Department of Cinema, Media Arts, and Theatre at Vanderbilt University.

An interdisciplinary historian, theorist and critic, Tift’s areas of research include African Diaspora Performance, Black Queer Feminist Performance; Art for Social Change; Performance Theory; and Applied Dramaturgy. She has published articles and book reviews in Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, The Black Theatre Review, New England Theatre Journal, Theatre Journal, and the Journal of American Drama and Theatre. Her forthcoming article about Anna Deavere Smith will be published in Theatre History Studies.

Her book, A Conditional Embrace: Black Queer Feminism in Performance, was published by The Ohio State University Press and is featured in its Black Performance and Cultural Criticism series (edited by E. Patrick Johnson). The research for this book has been recognized by the Princeton Society of Fellows and The Ford Foundation, and supported through grants from the American Theatre and Drama Society, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Georgia.

With 14 years of experience teaching in higher education, Tift has taught courses in Women’s and Gender Studies, Theatre Studies, Performance Studies, and Communication Arts. For excellence in teaching, she has received honors and awards from Vanderbilt University and the University of Georgia including an Innovative Teaching Award, Outstanding Teaching Award, and Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Fellowship.

As a performing artist, Tift (credited as Kristyl Dawn Tift) has acted, sang, and danced in theatre productions in New York and the southeast. She acts professionally in union film, television, and voiceover projects. Represented by Houghton Talent since 2010, she has booked roles on acclaimed series including the Emmy-nominated series DTF: St. Louis, Genius: MLK/X, Black Lightning, and Greenleaf. An audiobook narrator, she won a Kirkus Reviews Earphones Award for her narration of Brandy Colbert’s award-winning book, Black Birds In the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, produced by HarperAudio. She has also narrated books by journalist and activist, Ida B. Wells-Barnett (Mob Rule in New Orleans and Southern Horrors & The Red Record) for the Amazon Classics series produced by Brilliance Audio.