Signy Lynch

Signy Lynch is Assistant Professor in English and Drama at the University of Toronto Mississauga, and a graduate faculty member at the Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies. Her areas of research and teaching specialization include contemporary intercultural, diasporic, and Black theatres in Canada; interdisciplinary/intermedial and participatory performance; audience research; and theatre criticism. 

Her peer-reviewed and public-facing articles appear in publications including Theatre Research in Canada, Contemporary Theatre Review, Canadian Theatre Review, and New Theatre Quarterly, alt.theatre, Cdn Times, and Intermission Magazine. She is co-editor of Canadian Theatre Review volume 186, “Theatre After the Explosion” (Spring 2021). She is currently developing a book manuscript based on her SSHRC-funded dissertation, which won York University’s Barbara Godard Prize for best dissertation in Canadian Studies (2021), and helped her to secure a Governor General’s Gold Academic Medal (2022). 

She also works as a critical dramaturg, where she seeks to push the boundaries of traditional theatre criticism to imagine critical and creative practices that can reflect our digital and intercultural present and futures. She has facilitated the Toronto Fringe’s New Young Reviewers program for three years, and her essay “Performing at Home in the Pandemic” (Canadian Theatre Review vol. 191) was named runner-up for Outstanding Critical Essay by the Canadian Theatre Critics Association (2022).

She is co-director of the Centre for Spectatorship and Audience Research (centreforspectatorship.com), and co-chair of the board of directors of Toronto’s Cahoots Theatre.