Scott smiling at camera, wearing glasses and blazer

Executive Director

Floyd U. Jones Family Endowed Chair

Professor, Theatre History

HUT 107
Office Hours
By appointment

Biography

Ph. D. University of Minnestota
MA University of Minnesota
BA Augsburg College, Minneapolis

Scott Magelssen is Executive Director and Floyd U. Jones Family Endowed Chair of the UW School of Drama, where he is also a Professor of Theatre History and Performance Studies. He holds a PhD in Theatre History, Theory, and Dramatic Literature from the University of Minnesota. His most recent book, Performing Flight: From the Barnstormers to Space Tourism, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2020. He co-edited a collection of essays, Enveloping Worlds: Toward a Discourse of Immersive Performance with E. B. Hunter (Washington University in St. Louis), which was published by University of Michigan Press in 2025. His current book project, Performing Prehistory: Dinosaur Encounters and Repertoires of Racial Anxiety, is about popular representations of dinosaurs and cavemen starting in the nineteenth century. Scott is the author of Simming: Participatory Performance and the Making of Meaning (2014) and Living History Museums (2007), and co-editor of Enacting History (2011), Theatre Historiography: Critical Interventions (2010), and Querying Difference in Theatre History (2007).