Kathleen Irwin

Kathleen Irwin is professor emerita of the Theatre Department at the University of Regina. With CATR she served as Prairie Representative and long-time Scholarly Awards Coordinator. At the University of Regina, she taught a variety of courses broadly understood as scenography as well as a variety of courses that might be broadly understood as expanded scenography, including Performance and Prosthetics, Food, Politics and Performance, Voice Work for Disabled Bodies, and Performing Trauma.

During her twenty-five years in the department, Kathleen was a champion of students and provided many of them with opportunities and experiences, but also responsibilities that no one else would trust them with. As Department Head she worked tirelessly to introduce devising in the classroom and devised performance as part of the department’s curriculum. She was also a strong advocate for students who were disabled and wanted to perform. She supported the development of Not About Heras from its inception/creation as a classroom project to its final manifestation as a provincial tour. She was a formal and informal mentor to numerous graduate students, new faculty and artist-scholars, and a strong supporter of local culture, artists, and cultural institution, particularly in her involvement with ArtsAction, Inc. and presently with the development and ongoing leadership of the On Cue Performance Hub (OCPH), an entrepreneurial start up focused on making Regina a viable location for independent performing artists to make a sustainable living.

From 2017 until her retirement, as Associate Dean Graduate Studies and Research for the Faculty of Media, Art, and Performance she oversaw the re-development and streamlining of most of the Faculty’s graduate programs reflecting curricula that responded to the 21st century graduate student. One of Dr. Irwin’s greatest accomplishments was providing the vison and leadership in the development and launch of the PhD in Media and Artistic Research (Research-Creation Project).

Before joining the University of Regina in 1995, Kathleen designed extensively for theatre, opera and dance, but for most of her career in Regina she focused on “notions of identity, space and representation as reflected through landscape in large-scale, multi-disciplinary, site-specific performance events.” From 2002 to 2008 she was co-Artistic Director of Knowhere Productions Inc., a creative collective that explored the relationship of local populations to a particular place and time. During this time, the company produced The Weyburn Project (2002), Crossfiring/Mama Wetotan (2006), and Windblown/Rafales (2008). Her critical work around site-specificity and spatial performativity and has been published widely. Dr. Irwin’s contributions to reimagining and reconceptualizing what design/scenography can be are numerous.

At various points in her career she was a Bogliasco Research Fellow, a Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy Fellow and a University of Regina Teaching and Learning Scholar. For many years she served as the Canadian Education Commissioner for the International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians (OISTAT). With her strong connections to OISTAT, International Federation of Theatre Research and the Associated Designers of Canada it is no surprise that every four years she organized a bit of a field trip for students and accompanied them to the Prague Quadrennial—a life changing experience for all who attended.