Brett Ashley Crawford

Dr. Crawford has worked extensively as a professional arts manager, primarily in theatre, and as professor in both arts management and theatre history. The highlights of her private sector work include 5 years working as Managing Director with Imagination Stage, an arts education and professional theatre located in Bethesda, MD, work as the managing director / production manager of Rep Stage and the Horowitz Center for the Arts in Columbia, MD, 3 years as managing director for St. Bart’s Playhouse in New York City plus myriad independent engagements in theatre, film, and arts festival work in NY, GA, TN, TX, and MD.

From 2000 – 2006 she worked as an assistant professor and program director of the graduate Arts Management program at American University. She has also taught arts management and theatre history at University of Maryland, College Park, Towson University, Georgia State University, Auburn University and LaGrange College. Her academic areas of specialization include creative theories, marketing, audience development (investigated through system theory and organization operations), technology and the arts, the history American theatre management, particularly women producers and managers on Broadway.

She has presented invited lectures and workshops across the United States and internationally on marketing and audience development, technology and the arts, and production management to audiences including guests of the Department of State, Arts Presenters, the University of Helsinki, and the Center for Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

She received her BS in Theatre from Northwestern University, MFA in Arts Management from Texas Tech University, with a Ph.D. in Theatre History and Criticism with a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Fellowships/Awards include:

• Finalist, Imagination Stage, Washington Post Award for Innovative Leadership
• Finalist, Imagination Stage, Center for Nonprofit Advancement’s Board Leadership Award
• Distance Learning Institute, American University
• Research Fellow, Center for Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
• Fellowship, International Centre for Advanced Theatre Research, Helsinki, Finland
• University Graduate Fellowship, University of Maryland, College Park

Education

B.S. Northwestern University

MFA Texas Tech University

Ph.D. University of Maryland

## Courses Taught

• 93-703 - Arts Enterprises: Management & Structures
• 93-811 - Producing A Performing Arts Season
• 94-843 - Research Seminar in Arts Management and Technology
• 90-739 - Systems Synthesis I