Kailin Wright
Ph.D. (University of Toronto)
M.A. (University of Toronto)
B.A. Honours (University of Toronto)
Honours
| 2025-2027 | Jules Léger Research Scholar in the Humanities and Social Sciences. |
| 2023-2028 | SSHRC Insight Grant. “No Mother, No Nation: Performing Reproductive Justice and the Future.” Principal Investigator (PI). |
| 2023 | SSHRC Connection Grant. “Performing Shores / The Shores of Performance: A Canadian Theatre Conference.” Co-Applicant. |
| 2020-2023 | Jules Lèger Research Scholar in Humanities and Social Sciences. |
| 2020-2023 | Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Partnership Grant. Theatre as a Bridge to Empathy and Healing: Learning from Queer Birth Stories. Principal Investigator: Lisa Goldberg. Co-Investigator. |
| 2018-2022 | SSHRC Insight Development Grant. "No Baby, No Future: Performing Pregnancy Loss in Canada." Principal Investigator. |
| 2021 | Association of Atlantic Universities (AAU) Teaching Award. |
| 2017 | StFX University Outstanding Teaching Award. |
| 2013-2015 | SSHRC Strategic Knowledge Cluster Grant. Editing Modernism in Canada (EMiC), Principal Investigator: Dean Irvine. Co-applicant. |
Canadian theatre; Canadian literature; social justice; identity; gender; race; Indigenous literatures; political theatre; performance studies; feminism; adaptation; Shakespeare adaptation; film and television adaptation; dystopia; reproductive justice; digital humanities; and children's literature. I am interested in working with Honours and Advanced Major students in any of these areas.
Current Activities: I am actively involved with Theatre Antigonish and I am currently working on a project about the treatment of motherhood and the future in Canadian theatre and popular media.
Books: Monographs
Political Adaptation in Canadian Theatre. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020.
*Positively reviewed in ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature; Canadian Literature; Theatre Research in Canada (TRiC); Canadian Theatre Review (CTR)
* Scholarly Book Award (ASPP), Federation for Humanities and Social Sciences
*Listed as one of Canada’s top 100 best non-fiction books by The Hill Times in 2020.
*Cited by Neptune Theatre
No Mother, No Future: Performing Motherhood and Reproductive Loss. Routledge Press (peer-reviewed, accepted, and in copy edits) 2025.
Books: Edited Books
The God of Gods: A Canadian Play by Carroll Aikins. University of Ottawa Press, 2016.
*Reviewed in Times Literary Supplement (TLS), Theatre Research in Canada (TRiC)
*Featured in an Art Museum exhibit (Deanna Bowen)
*Awarded The Scholarly Book Award (ASPP)
Slings & Arrows: Adapting Shakespeare as Canada in Theatre and Television. Co-edited by Don Moore. University of Toronto Press, forthcoming, accepted and in page proofs, 2025.
*Awarded The Scholarly Book Award (ASPP); 13 chapters with 2 original interviews.
Articles and Book Chapters
“Motherhood as Nationhood in Still Stands the House.” Rethinking Motherhood. Ed. Karen Bamford, Sheila Rabillard. McGill-Queen’s University Press, forthcoming (accepted, peer-reviewed, copy edits complete) 2025.
“Archives of Aquariums and Audience Immersion in Secret Life of a Mother.” Hannah Moscovitch Scrapbook. Ed. Sasha Kovacs and Michelle MacArthur. Playwrights Canada Press, forthcoming (under contract and accepted) 2025.
“Slings & Arrows: Adapting Shakespeare as Canada in Theatre and Television.” Slings & Arrows: Adapting Shakespeare in Theatre and Television. University of Toronto Press, forthcoming (peer-reviewed, accepted, page proofs) 2025. 3-27.
“Performing ‘A Nobody’: An Interview with Rothaford Gray on His Role as Nahum in Slings & Arrows.” Co-Authored with Don Moore. Slings & Arrows: Adapting Shakespeare in Theatre and Television. University of Toronto Press, forthcoming (peer-reviewed, accepted, page proofs) 2025. 108-121.
“Why Shakespeare? Why Canada?: An Interview with Susan Coyne, Bob Martin, and Mark McKinney on Creating Slings & Arrows.” Slings & Arrows: Adapting Shakespeare in Theatre and Television. University of Toronto Press, forthcoming (peer-reviewed, accepted, page proofs) 2025. 247-264.
“New in Town: An Interview with Three Creators of a Cabaret for New Canadian Citizens.” Interview with Anuj K. Jain, Justin Gregg, and Laura Teasdale. Canadian Theatre Review 201 (2025): 99-103.
“A Past-Perfect Future?: Performing the Past as the Future of Theatre in Atlantic Canada.” Canadian Theatre Review 201 (2025): 30-32.
“(Un)Making History? Canadian Theatre History and the Canadian Theatre Review.” Canadian Theatre Review 200 (2024): 10-16.
“Ruined Madonna with Child: Challenging Racialized Motherhood and the Sixties Scoop in Indigenous Theatre.” The Palgrave Handbook of Reproductive Justice and Literature. Springer International Publishing, 2022. 556–78.
“Everyone is Happy! Performing Adaptation, Irony, and Gender in The Millennial Malcontent.” Voices of a Generation. Ed. Michelle MacArthur. Playwrights Canada Press, 2022. 53-8.
“Untold Stories of Slavery: Performing Pregnancy and Racial Futurity in Beatrice Chancy.” On the Other Side(s) of 150: Untold Stories and Critical Approaches to History, Literature, and Identity in Canada. Ed. Linda M. Morra and Sarah Henzi. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2021. 134-150.
*Essay collection won Canadian Studies Network Prize for Best Edited Collection, 2021.
“Performing This is for You, Anna as #MeToo: Sexual Harassment and Performance-Based Activism on a University Campus.” Canadian Theatre Review 180 (2019): 27-35.
*Includes original scene written for this production by Kailin Wright
*Includes original poem by (StFX student) Emma Kuzmyk
“Failed Futurity: Performing Abortion in Merrill Denison’s Marsh Hay.” Canadian Literature 232 (2017): 100-16.
“Dispublics: Popular Yet Political Spectatorship in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and Erin Shields’s If We Were Birds.” Theatre Journal 69.2 (2017): 213-34.
“Making Radio, Making History: Merrill Denison’s Alexander Mackenzie.” Past Lives: Performing Canada’s Histories. Ed. Heather Davis-Fisch. Playwrights Canada Press, 2017. 189-196.
*Essay collection won Patrick O’Neill Award for best edited collection of essays, 2019
“Bringing the Text to Life: Editing the Modernist Canadian Play The God of Gods.” Making Canada New: Editing, Modernism, and New Media. Ed. Dean Irvine, Vanessa Lent, and Bart Vautour. University of Toronto Press, 2017. 189-211.
“‘Who’s There?’: Slings & Arrows’ Audience Dynamics.” Shakespeare and Canada: Remembrance of Ourselves. Ed. Irene Makaryk and Kathryn Prince. University of Ottawa Press, 2017. 79-95.
*Reprinted in Slings & Arrows: Adapting Shakespeare as Canada in Theatre and Television. University of Toronto Press, forthcoming December 2025. 125-140.
“Performing Cultural Crossroads: The Subject-Making Functions of ‘I am’ Declarations in Daniel David Moses’s Almighty Voice and His Wife.” Theatre Research in Canada/Recherches théâtrales au Canada 35.2 (2014): 80-105.
“Politicizing Difference: (Re)Claiming Canadian Theatre History and ‘Les Sauvages’ in Le Théâtre de Neptune en la Nouvelle-France and Sinking Neptune.” Studies in Canadian Literature 38.1 (2013): 8-28.
