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Charles Parrott
Assistant Professor & Director of The KSU Tellers
Charles Parrott received his Ph.D. in Performance Studies
from Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2011). He earned an M.A. with an emphasis in rhetoric from Ball State
University in Indiana (2002) and majored in Speech Communication and Sociology
at Hastings College in Nebraska (2000) where he earned a bachelor’s degree. He
teaches courses at KSU focused on performance studies, including the
intersections between performance and culture and he is the director of The KSU Tellers storytelling troupe
A native Nebraskan, Charles cemented his love of performance
as a forensics competitor for Hastings College from 1996 to 2000. He is proud
of the time he spent coaching competitive forensics: first, as a graduate assistant
at Ball State University; and later, as Director of Forensics at Clemson
University. His students earned multiple national and regional awards including
two national championships.
While attending Southern Illinois University Carbondale,
Charles participated in nine performances in four years in the Marion Kleinau
Theatre. These performances included work under the direction of Dr. Ronald J.
Pelias, Dr. Craig Gingrich-Philbrook and Dr. Jonny Gray. His original work
appeared in The Kleinau Theatre in 2007 when he co-wrote and directed Doctor Weathervaine’s [adjective]
[adjective] Olde Timey Medicine Show (and Revue), and he wrote and directed Rip Cardigan and the History of the
Future in 2008. He was honored in 2009 as the recipient of the Marion
Kleinau Theatre Award for outstanding contributions to performance studies at
SIUC. He regularly performs his own poetry and stand-up comedy and is a former
member of the Carbondale Illinois chapter of the improv comedy troupe Cult of the Stage Monkey.
Charles’ research
employs Continental philosophy—phenomenology and hermeneutics particularly—to
examine popular entertainments and performance art. His other areas of interest
include performance history, materialities of communication, performance in the
community, improvisation, popular culture and creative collaboration. He
regularly presents his research at the National Communication Association
Annual Convention and at the Western States Communication Association Conference,
where he has served as Secretary and Vice Chair of the Performance Studies
Division.
Andrew Edwards Photo
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