Nicole Hodges Persley

Dr. Hodges Persley is an Associate Professor of Theatre She teaches courses on Hip-hop, acting, auditioning, African American theater, critical race theory, improvisation, and transnational performance. Dr. Hodges Persley is a professional actor and director with credits in theater, film, and television. She is a member of SAG/AFTRA, AEA, SDC (Stage Directors and Choreographers Society), and the NTC (National Theatre Conference). Notable directing credits include Lewis Morrow's Mother/son, Kristoffer Diaz's Welcome to Arroyo's, Angelina W. Grimke's Rachel, Amiri Baraka's Dutchman, and Dominique Morisseau's Sunset Baby. Hodges Persley creates intentional bridges between the entertainment industry and academia as an artist-scholar. In her work as the Artistic Director of the KC Melting Pot Theater, she helped KCMPT become the primary incubator for black talent in Kansas City. She has received numerous awards for teaching and mentoring including KU Center for Sexuality and Gender Diversity Pride Award in 2017, The McNair Scholars Mentoring Award in 2016, KU's Byron T. Shutz Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015, and The Mellon Foundation's Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring Award in 2008. Dr. Hodges Persley is one of the founding Program Directors for the Hip-hop Archive at Harvard University at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Studies. She completed her Ph.D. in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and is an alumna of Spelman College. She has published articles and book chapters on Hip-hop Theatre, African American Theater, Sampling, Jay-Z, Suzan-Lori Parks with forthcoming work on Drake, Nicki Minaj and Idris Elba. She is the author of Sampling and Remixing Blackness in Hip-Hop Theater and Performance  (University of Michigan 2021), Breaking it Down: Audition Techniques for Actors of the Global Majority,( Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) and the editor of Black Matters: The Lewis Morrow Plays (Methuen 2022). Her forthcoming book Hip-Hop in Musical Theater(Methuen 2023) will be published in July 2023 and tracks early traces of Hip-Hop music in popular musicals.  Dr. Hodges Persley is also the co-founder of http://createensemble.com, an arts exchange and collaboration space for artists of color. 

Publications Link: http://kansas.academia.edu/NicoleHodgesPersley