cody page is a 2021 Ph.D. graduate from the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University. He received his MA in Educational Theatre for Colleges and Communities from New York University Steinhardt, and a BHUM in Communications from the Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg. Their dissertation “Toward the Horizon: Contemporary Queer Theater as Utopic Activism," explores the concept of utopic activism within staged and scripted dramas. Utopic activism concerns the potential to create change through the application of pedagogies and dramaturgies of theatre for social change to scripted drama, and in turn prompt audiences toward envisioning, embracing, and enacting a better future. Individual chapters draw on a variety of critical modes of investigation including history, historiography, and historicization, empathy, relationships and friendships, and genre conventions to investigate the ways queer theatre creates meaning. This project explores this theory through the works of Bryna Turner, Joshua Harmon, Tarrel Alvin McCraney, Christina Quintana, Jordan Harrison, Michael R. Jackson, Dan Gillespie Sells, Tom MacRae, and Matthew Lopez.

cody has explored many aspects of theatre, both on and off stage, including acting, stage managing, sound design, and board operator positions. His experience is that creativity, pedagogy, and scholarship inform each other, and he uses his position as a director to influence all areas of his academic life. His experience directing ranges from the university setting to community theatres and performing arts studios to devised community-based work to junior programs within theatre summer camps. No matter the focus or the venue for directing, he strives to leave actors in a better position than when they began. 

Finally, cody believes that the theatre is a place of change and challenge. They believe that the stage gives performers, creators, storytellers, and audience members, a medium to experience new worlds, new lives, and new ways of thinking. Through this exposure, they hope that audiences might see a glimmer of hope on the horizon for a better future.