E. J. Westlake

E.J. Westlake was born in Dayton, Ohio, where she attended the Colonel White High School for the Performing Arts. She received a BA in Theatre Management from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in Theatre Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is now an assistant professor of theatre at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where she teaches theatre history and American drama. She is the author of Our Land Is Made of Courage and Glory (2005) and several articles about Latin American and community-based theatre. She also writes about pedagogy and on performance and technology. She is currently conducting research on the Nicaraguan national dance drama El Güegüence and its metamorphosis from a 19th-century object of anthropological study to a symbol of political resistance by marginalized peoples.