Patrick McKelvey is Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in performance studies, theatre history, and disability studies. Before joining the faculty at Pitt, he received his PhD from Brown University in 2017 and taught at Florida State University’s School of Theatre from 2016 to 2018. He has published essays in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, and Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings (ed. Clare Croft; Oxford, 2017). McKelvey’s essay, “Ron Whyte’s ‘Disemployment,’” (Theatre Survey, 2016) won three “best essay” awards from the American Society for Theatre Research, the American Theatre and Drama Society, and the Committee on LGBT History. His archival research has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the Schlesinger Library, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
McKelvey’s first book, Disability Works: Performance After Rehabilitation was published by NYU Press (2024). McKelvey is currently writing three books: Supporting Actors, a history of social services for disabled theatre workers; The Guests, a group biography of actresses at the Actors Fund’s retirement home; and Companionable, a queer and canine history of collective care.
Representative Publications
“Ron Whyte’s ‘Disemployment’: Prosthetic Performance and Theatrical Labor” (Theatre Survey, 2016)
“Choreographing the Chronic,” in Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings (Oxford University Press), edited by Clare Croft
Reviews in Theatre Journal, Modern Drama, TDR, and The Journal of American Drama and Theatre
Research Interests
Education & Training
- PhD, Theatre and Performance Studies, Brown University, 2017
- MA, Anthropology, Brown University, 2017
- BA, English and Theatre/Dance, University of Texas-Austin, 2008
