Murphy published in Contemporary Theatre Review: Interventions

Cason Murphy, associate professor of theatre in the Department of Music and Theatre, was recently published in a special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review: Interventions, a peer-reviewed international journal published by Taylor & Francis. Murphy was part of a selected group of contributors invited to a special issue on The/An Octoroon, examining critical interventions shaping contemporary theatre scholarship around the linked plays – “The Octoroon” (1859) by Dion Boucicault and “An Octoroon” (2014) by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.

Murphy’s essay, “What’s Black(face), White(face), and Red(face) All Over?,” analyzes Jacobs-Jenkins’ provocative twenty-first-century engagement with nineteenth-century melodramatic performance conventions, focusing specifically on the use of blackface, whiteface, and redface. The article examines how Jacobs-Jenkins draws on – and deliberately disrupts – the theatrical practices of Dion Boucicault’s “The Octoroon,” using face makeup not merely as historical citation but as a means of interrogating the enduring legacies of cross-racial performance on the American stage. By foregrounding performance convention as a site of ethical and aesthetic tension, Murphy argues that “An Octoroon” forces contemporary audiences to confront how racial representation, theatrical spectatorship, and historical memory remain entangled in American theatre.

Murphy teaches courses in script analysis, musical theatre, acting for the camera, and introduction to performing arts. He is the author of “The World at Play: Performance from the Audience’s Perspective,” a textbook that offers an audience-oriented view of theatre, dance, music, film, television, podcasting, video gaming, and other emergent contemporary performance forms. Murphy is the recipient of the 2021 ISU Early Achievement in Teaching Award, the 2021 LAS Cassling Family Faculty Award for Early Achievement in Teaching, the 2022 Arts Educator Award from the Ames Community Arts Council, and the 2023 ATHE/KCACTF Prize for Innovative Teaching. He recently directed “Urinetown: The Musical” as part of ISU Theatre’s 2025 – 2026 season.

The special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review: Interventions is available online.