Harley Erdman
harley@theater.umass.edu
Associate Professor: Dramaturgy
BA, Swarthmore College, M.A., University of Texas at Austin, Ph.D., Theater History and Dramatic Criticism, University of Texas at Austin.

Harley Erdman is a translator, theater historian, playwright, and dramaturg with specialties in Jewish-American theater and Spanish and Latin American theater. He has published numerous articles on the history of Jewish representation on the American stage, as well as the book Staging the Jew.  His article on the Yiddish play God of Vengeance won the Kahn Award for Outstanding Essay from the American Society for Theater Research.

As a translator of contemporary Latin American theater, his work includes Concepción León Mora’s Mestiza Power, Arístides Vargas’ Rigoberta’s House Faces South, Vicente Leñero’s The Move, as well as Spanish Golden Age plays by Calderón, Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina.  He is currently working on a collection of plays by 17th-century Spanish women. He is a winner of the Association for Hispanic Classic Theater’s Translation Prize.

He wrote the libretto for Paula Kimper’s opera The Captivation of Eunice Williams, showcased at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. With Roberta Uno, he created the script for West Side Stories, an interview theater piece. He has also collaborated on a number of puppet pieces with UMass colleague Miguel Romero, notably Archipelago of Delight. He is currently working on an opera with UMass composer Salvatore Macchia.

He has served as Editor of the journal Theatre Topics, and received the Outstanding Teacher Award from the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. He chaired the UMass Department of Theater, 2002-2007.