Margaret Araneo

Margaret is a Brooklyn-based theatre maker and scholar whose work focuses on the intersection of performance and the history of neurological impairments.

Having completed her BA in political science from Johns Hopkins University, Margaret went on to earn an MFA in Acting from Carnegie Mellon University and the Moscow Art Theatre School. With the desire to combine her practical work in the theatre with the scholarly study of performance and culture, Margaret returned to academia, earning a PhD. in Theatre History from the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Margaret has served as the Managing Editor of the journal Slavic and East European Performance. She has written on contemporary Eastern European theatre as well as published several performance and book reviews. She has presented papers at leading academic conferences, including those of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the American Society of Theatre Research, and the International Federation for Theatre Research. Her current scholarly project explores the relationship between performance, labor, and embodied difference inside modernist culture's economy of hysteria and neurological impairment.

Margaret is the Co-artistic Director of Citizen Arts and Education, a non-profit arts organization committed to generating cultural dialogue through the creation of original artistic work. In spring 2023, she launched The Nest program, which supports emerging artists between the ages of 18 and 26 who are working in the performing and visual arts. The program provides space and resources for those embarking on new artistic journeys to cultivate their ideas and share them with audiences.