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.
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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.
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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
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“Maname’s ‘Bridal Pavilion’ Jungle Duet”
July 28, 2022
ATHE: Detroit, MI
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“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