Professor of Emerging Technologies in Theatre & Performance
Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies
BMO Lab for Creative Research in Emerging Technologies & AI
University of Toronto
About Sarah
Sarah Bay-Cheng is Professor of Emerging Technologies in Theatre and Performance and the Helen and Paul Phelan Chair in Drama at the University of Toronto, Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies. She also serves as the Academic Director for the BMO Lab for Creative Research in Emerging Technologies.
Previous appointments include Dean of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design at York University (2019-2025), Chair of Theater and Dance at Bowdoin College, and various roles the University at Buffalo (UB) and Colgate University.
In 2012, she created the Techne Institute for Arts and Emerging Technologies at UB and founded its graduate programs in Theatre & Performance.
Sarah frequently lectures on the intersections of digital technologies and performance, demonstrating how historical practices inform contemporary culture. In the fall of 2015, she was in residence at Utrecht University as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies. Her current research considers the role of data and AI in theatre and performance.
Photo Credit: Diana Tyszko
Books
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![Book cover for Performance in Media]()
Performance and Media: Taxonomies
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![Book cover for Mapping Intermediality in Performance]()
Mapping Intermediality in Performance: Media Matters
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![Cover for Poets at Play Book]()
Poets at Play: An Anthology of Modernist Drama
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![Cover for Mama Dada book]()
Mama Dada: Gertrude Stein’s Avant-Garde Theater
Commentary
Interviews
“Theatre history is inextricably rooted within technology. Understanding performances of the past can help us navigate the present and build better futures.”
— Sarah Bay-Cheng
Selected Essays
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Contribution to roundtable on the state of digital research and scholarship in theatre and performance studies. Published in the online edition of Theatre Journal 76.2 (June 2024): E26-30. Read it here.
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Analysis of online theatre and performance during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2019-2021.
First delivered as lectures at Yale University, UCLA and the University of Southern Mississippi. Published in Theatre Research International Special Issue: Presence, Politics, Resistance Tendencies in (Post-)Pandemic Performance and Theatre, eds. Heidi Lucja Liedke, Monika Pietrzak-Franger, Heidi Liedke. 48.1 (Winter 2023): 1-15.
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Analysis of digital performance and documentation as a form of translation. Uses the work of Larry Rosenwald to understand how broadcast performances work.
In the Face of Adversity: Translating Difference and Dissent, ed. Thomas Nolden. London: UCL Press (2023)
Download PDF here.
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Analysis of Annie Dorsen’s theatre Catalogue to accompany 2022-23 retrospective of Dorsen’s performance works at Bryn Mawr College and Philadelphia Live Arts.
Algorithmic Theater: Essays and Dialogues, 2012-2022, ed. Tom Sellar. Philadelphia, PA (2022): 240-255.
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Discussion of the acting in Jordan Peele’s film Get Out as an extension of acting techniques in the early 20th century on stage and screen. published in Modernism/modernity Print+ Vol. 4, Cycle 3 (October 10, 2019).
https://modernismmodernity.org/articles/afterlife-modernist-acting
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Contemporary Theatre Review 27.3 (Fall 2017): 324-339
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Theatre Journal 68.4 (December 2016): 507-527.
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Theatre 46.2 (2016): 77-85
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Interventions, Contemporary Theatre Review, UK (May 2016)
http://www.contemporaryTheatrereview.org/2016/postmedia-performance/.
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Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 19.3 (summer 2014): 48-55
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Theatre 42.2 (2012): 27-41
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Theatre Topics: Special Issue on Theatre History 17.1 (March 2007): 37-50.
Invited Talks
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Invited lecture to the Global Congress on Digital Innovation in the Performing Arts, Venice Italy, 3-4 October 2024.
Revised and expanded version delivered as the keynote address to Interpolations 2: Spatial Computing and Performance at Washington University, St. Louis, 25 October 2024.
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Panel discussion on the impact of data on arts and audiences. Hosted at the Catalyst Centre, Toronto Metropolitan University (hosted online for accessibility), April 24, 2023.
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Talk on how digital technologies are changing performance audience’s understanding of themselves, the work they see and the public at large.
Keynote lecture for Graduate Conference on Theatre & Performance. Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, University of Toronto, February 10, 2023.
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Talk on how algorithms, AI and online data regimes are changing the practice and reception of theatre and other forms of performance. Delivered online as part of the Metalab lecture series sponsored by Harvard University and Frei Universität-Berlin, January 27, 2023.
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Discussion of how the arts contribute to civil society. Sponsored by Mass Culture and the Association for Opera in Canada, September 15, 2022.
Associated thought piece published here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQQR0KxoUp4
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Item description
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Presentation to the Canadian Association for Live Music on the interplay between live performance and recording technologies.
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Keynote for the Digital Research Methods in Dance and Theatre Studies: International Workshop, University of Bern (Switzerland), January 7-9, 2020.
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Graduate Student Conference, City University of New York, May 13-14, 2019.
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Culture and Technology Conference, University of Ottawa (Canada), April 24-27, 2019.
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Invited lecture on surveillance technologies, performance and the changing effect on public space. Harvard University Mellon School for Theatre and Performance Studies. June 13, 2018.
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Overview of digital technologies in museums and other cultural heritage sites. Presented as keynote lecture at the University of Toronto; (January 20, 2018); Brown University (March 12, 2018); University of Georgia (March 23, 2018)