About Me
Brian D. Valencia
I am a Latinx theater historian, dramaturg, composer, lyricist, director, musical director, and performer, holding a doctor of fine arts degree from the Yale School of Drama. Beyond teaching musical theater history for Florida International University, I serve as the Focus Group Representative, the lead elected officer, for the Music Theatre/Dance Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and am the editor of Books in Review for New England Theatre Journal.
My scholarly writing and reviews have appeared in Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context, The Palgrave Companion to Musical Theatre Producers, The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, Studies in Musical Theatre, Contemporary Theatre Review, Common-place, Theater magazine, and the New York Public Library’s Musical of the Month project. I am currently working on a book that unearths and reconstructs the social network of eighteenth-century musical-theater-makers who laid the foundation for a national culture of musical theater in America—before Broadway was Broadway.
As a theatrical practitioner, my creative work has been seen and heard in New York City—where I was a research consultant on the 2016 Broadway production of Shuffle Along—in addition to Boston; Miami; New Haven, Connecticut; Washington, D.C.; and Seoul, South Korea.
Education
Doctor of Fine Arts
Yale University
David Geffen School of Drama
December 2020
Department of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism
Dissertation: "'Our Artless Muse': Ballad Opera, The Hallam Company, and How the Musical Became American"
Advisor: Marc Robinson
Master of Fine Arts
Yale University
David Geffen School of Drama
May 2010
Department of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism
Comprehensive Examinations: Greek Tragedy and American Musical Theater
Master of Fine Arts
New York University
Tisch School of the Arts
May 2007
Graduate Program in Musical Theater Writing
Concentrations: Book, Music, and Lyrics
Advisors: Rachel Sheinkin and Mindi Dickstein
Bachelor of Science
Yale University
May 2005
Majors: Chemical Engineering and Theater Studies
University Teaching
Florida International University
Instructor
Ohio University
Visiting Instructor
University of Miami
Lecturer (Full-Time)
2019–present
History of Musical Theatre in America
Fall 2022
Musical Theatre History
2014–2018
Introduction to Theatre
Introduction to Acting
Introduction to Acting for Musical Theatre
Criticism
Musical Theatre in America: Its Dramaturgy, Sound, & Cultural Participation
472: Where Stage and Film Meet
Lyric-Writing for Musical Theatre
Theatre History I and II
Florida International University
Lecturer (Adjunct)
Florida International University
Lecturer (Adjunct)
Yale University
Instructor
Spring 2014
History of Musical Theatre in America
Spring 2014
Theatre History I and II
Spring 2012
Music in the Theater: From Monody to Mozart to The Book of Mormon
Conference Presentations
“Unsung: Toward an Inclusive Musical Theater History, A Canonization Project/Conference Scavenger Hunt/Performance Installation”
August 4–6, 2023
Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE): Austin, TX
“Maname’s ‘Bridal Pavilion’ Jungle Duet”
July 28, 2022
ATHE: Detroit, MI
“Hearing Hopkins Again: Reconstructing the Musicality of Pauline Hopkins’s Peculiar Sam, the First Black American Musical”
March 31, 2022
C19: Coral Gables, FL
“Rewriting the Autobiography: A Strange Loop as the ‘Other’ Self-Reflexive Broadway Musical.”
August 7, 2021
ATHE: virtual conference
“‘Get Yourself Some New Orchestrations’: The Musical Score in Revival”
August 8, 2019
ATHE: Orlando, FL
“Life in Glimpses, Glances, and Peeps: The Mise en Scène of American Musical Landscapes”
August 3, 2018
ATHE: Boston, MA
“‘Fantasies Come True’: Reenchantment of the World Through Musical Theater.”
August 3, 2018
ATHE: Boston, MA
“Sounds of the City: Musical Migration in A Glance at New York.”
June 5, 2018
International Conference on American Drama and Theater V: Nancy, France
“A Little Night Music: A Practice-as-Research Cabaret"
August 5, 2017
ATHE: Las Vegas, NV
“A Latent Uproar: An Argument for Reconstructing the ‘First’ American Musical”
November 3, 2016
American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR): Minneapolis, MN
“Of Purple Summers and the Joy You Feel: ‘Integrated’ Art and/as Feeling”
August 12, 2016
ATHE: Chicago, IL
“All I Ever Needed Was the Music and the Classroom and the Chance: Pedagogy and Practical Lessons for Teaching Musical Theatre History” Pedagogy Roundtable
August 1, 2015
ATHE: Montreal, Canada
“‘What a Crescendo—Not to Be Missed’: Loudness in the American Musical”
November 8, 2013
ASTR: Dallas, TX
“James Robinson Planché: The Music of Magic, Spectacle in Song”
August 1, 2013
ATHE: Orlando, FL
“Mapping a New (Musical) World: Toward an American Musical Drama of the Eighteenth Century”
November 2, 2012
ASTR: Nashville, TN
“‘The Country’s in the Very Best of Hands’?: Musical Depictions of U.S. Presidents and the Democratic Spirit”
August 5, 2012
ATHE: Washington, DC
“Broadway Musicals About Broadway Musicals: A Theatrical Autobiography”
May 28, 2012
International Conference on American Drama and Theater IV: Seville, Spain