Research Overview

Jenny Mercein
Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre and Dance
Tulane University

My research centers primarily on creating socially relevant theatre that speaks to contemporary issues and currently encompasses acting, directing, writing, and producing theatre and film.

X’s and O’s, an award-winning docudrama about football and traumatic brain injury that I co-created with KJ Sanchez, represented a turning point in my career and research. Recognizing the power of theatre to engage communities in much-need dialogue, I worked in collaboration with Goat in the Road Productions, documentarian Katie Mathews, and a diverse cast of undergraduate students to create Roleplay, a devised play exploring student perspectives' on love, sex, power, and consent created in response to the disturbing results of a 2018 Tulane survey on sexual misconduct. The Roleplay script will be published later this year by Dramatic Publishing and we are in post-production on a documentary film charting the creation of the play. The published script and documentary film of the process will provide powerful tools for others seeking to stimulate dialogue and make positive culture change on college campuses.

During the global pandemic, I wrote two plays for virtual platforms that speak to the current climate. Auld Lang Syne, published in the anthology Alone, Together (2021) examines the desperate need to connect many felt during lockdown. Gratitude Assignment, part of REFRAMED 2020: Five Short Plays on Social Justice, addresses bystander intervention. I recently directed Baby Camp, a dark comedy exploring reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. I’m currently developing Two Elizas, a historical play about women’s rights, motherhood, and loss. On the topic of motherhood, the New York Times recently cited the article I co-wrote on voice and childbirth for the Voice and Speech Review.

As Tulane’s Head of Performance since 2017, I am a working member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA, allowing me to keep us with contemporary casting and production practices. Recent credits include Your Honor

(Showtime), NCIS: New Orleans (CBS), What Would You Do (ABC) and August: Osage County (Southern Rep) and credits prior to coming to Tulane include 30 Rock (NBC), Blue Bloods (CBS), and Law & Order (NBC), as well as extensive theater credits spanning the country.

In sum, my producing, directorial, written, and devised scholarship centers on socially relevant issues, while performance projects range from screen to stage productions addressing a wide variety of topics and genres. The unifying principle for all my work is a core belief in storytelling – its utility in theatre pedagogy, and its vitality in campus and community.