Bruce McConachie is a historian of popular performances, Emeritus Professor (University of Pittsburgh)won the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society for Theater Research in 2011. His major books include cultural histories of Cold War American theatre, nineteenth-century melodramas, and Theatre Histories: An Introduction, with three co-authors (2006, 2010, and 2016). His scholarship took an evolutionary turn after 2016 with the publications of Evolution, Cognition, and Performance and Drama, Politics, and Evoluion: Cliodynamics in Play (2021). An actor and director as well as a scholar, McConachie continues to perform and direct in retirement.
