Gavin Whitehead is a scholar, educator, theater artist, and translator. His dissertation explores horror theater in London from 1794 to 1931, seeking to explain why playgoers flocked to ghoulish displays of monstrosity and violence time and time again. For the past two years, Gavin has served as a teaching associate at David Geffen School of Drama, leading weekly discussion sections as part of the conservatory’s year-long course on theater history. His most recent work in theater has overlapped with his research interest in British culture and history. Last year, Yale’s Elizabethan Club commissioned him to write and direct a play which showed at the university’s Center for British Art. It told the remarkable tale of Susannah Maria Cibber, one of the most celebrated actresses in London during the eighteenth century. A follow-up project inspired by the satirical magazine Punch will show this November at the Center for British Art. As for translation: Gavin’s rendition of Leonce and Lena by Georg Büchner ran at Yale Cabaret in 2015. Future plans include an edited anthology of Grand Guignol translations.
Gavin earned his MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism in 2017. A former Fulbright scholar, he spent a year in Berlin studying theater after completing his undergraduate education. He holds degrees in German and Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he graduated with Highest Honors in 2012.