Faedra Chatard Carpenter is a freelance dramaturg and an associate professor in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. As a former resident dramaturg for Arena Stage and Crossroads Theatre Company, Carpenter has also worked as a freelance dramaturg for Theater J, The Kennedy Center, The African Continuum Theatre Company, Center Stage, TheatreWorks, and The Black Women Playwrights Group. Her interests include the study of race, sexuality, and gender in contemporary performance, and she has published work in The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre, LMDA Review, Theatre Topics, Women & Performance, Text and Performance Quarterly, and Callaloo.