Vice President, NAST (Board of Directors)
Elected March 2023, term ends March 2026
David Z. Saltz is Professor of Theatre at the University of Georgia (UGA). He joined the faculty in 1997 and served as Head of the Department of Theatre from 2004–2022. Professor Saltz previously held positions at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the College of William and Mary.
Professor Saltz serves as Executive Director of Ideas for Creative Exploration, an interdisciplinary initiative of the UGA Office for Research and the Graduate School. He was Principal Investigator of Virtual Vaudeville, a large-scale research project funded by the National Science Foundation to simulate a nineteenth-century vaudeville performance on the computer. He established the Interactive Performance Laboratory at UGA, has directed a series of productions incorporating real-time interactive digital media, and created interactive sculptural installations that have been exhibited nationally. Professor Saltz’s recent work focuses on robotic theatre. He is co-author (with Sarah Bay-Cheng and Jennifer Parker-Starbuck) of Performance and Media: Taxonomies for a Changing Field (University of Michigan Press, 2015); co-editor (with David Krasner) of Staging Philosophy: Intersections of Theater, Performance, and Philosophy (University of Michigan Press, 2006); and has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and books. He has served as Secretary of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), and as co-editor and then editor of Theatre Journal from 2006 to 2009. He received a Sandy Beaver Special Teaching Award in 2008.
Professor Saltz serves NAST as a Visiting Evaluator. He was member of the Commission on Accreditation from 2009 to 2016 and was elected as Chair of the Commission in 2020. He served as Treasurer of the Association from 2018–2020.
Professor Saltz holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Drama from Stanford University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology in the Philosophy Track with Theatre Studies from Yale University.
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Posted March 2023