Shilarna Stokes

Shilarna Stokes is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theatre at Yale University's Yale School of Drama. She specializes in theatre/performance studies, focusing on mass spectacles, pageants, and their relationship to public space and collectivity. Stokes holds a BA in Literature and Theater Studies from Yale University, an MFA in Directing, and a PhD in Theatre, both from Columbia University.

Her career includes roles as Assistant Professor at Ohio State University's Theatre Department and Artistic Director of the site-specific performance project Be the Street. She has directed over thirty new plays and musicals for prominent companies like Cherry Lane, Soho Rep, and the Lark Play Development Center, with notable works including The Comedy of Errors and Hedda Gabler.

Stokes' research integrates archival studies, performance theory, and crowd theory to analyze 20th-century political pageants. Her current book project, Playing the Crowd: Mass Pageantry in Europe and the United States, explores these themes across England, the U.S., Russia, and Germany. She has received fellowships/residencies from institutions including the Williamstown Theater Festival and SSDC.

Her teaching spans undergraduate and graduate programs at Yale, Ohio State, Hampshire College, and SUNY-Brockport, where she directed productions like Bat Boy, the Musical and One Man, Two Guvnors.