TDPS Welcomes New Faculty

Three new artist-scholars join the TDPS faculty in Fall 2025

The School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies welcomes three new faculty members this fall: Courtney Lau, Ivania Stack and Yara Travieso.

Courtney Lau is joining TDPS as a lecturer in theatre history and theory.

Lau has a Ph.D. from the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University, where she was also a Deans’ Faculty Fellow. Before Brown, with the support of a Fulbright Postgraduate Student Award, she received her M.A. in dance studies from the University of Roehampton in London. Her manuscript in progress, “Face-to-Face: Sensuous Encounters in Asian American Portraiture and Performance,” examines scenes of critical encounter with Asian American racial and sexual difference from the late 19th century to the present.

Ivania Stack M.F.A. ’09 joins the faculty as an assistant professor in costume design.

Stack is a costume designer based in the Washington, D.C., area with more than 20 years of experience working on over 300 shows and productions. She was previously an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University. She is a company member and board member at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company where she designed several productions including “Fairview,” “Describe the Night” and “Botticelli in the Fire.” Stack also designs for several regional and D.C. theatres including Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, Everyman Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Signature Theatre, Round House Theatre and Gala Hispanic Theatre, among others.

Yara Travieso is joining TDPS as a visiting guest artist; she will teach two classes this fall and direct the spring production of her original play, “El Ciclón.”

Travieso is a Cuban-Venezuelan-American artist, educator and community collaborator working in performance, film, ritual and protest. She is a 2023-24 Chelsea Factory Artist, a 2021 New York State Council For The Arts Individual Artist in Film & Media grant recipient, and a 2019 United States Artist Fellow. She is currently on faculty at The Juilliard School, where she received the John Erskine Faculty Prize as well as a BA in Dance in 2009. Her productions have been featured in NYC’s Park Avenue Armory, Lincoln Center, Performance Space New York, The Public Theater, the Knockdown Center, the High Line park, Opéra national de Lorraine, New World Center and The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, among others.