Professor Burch joined the department in 2002 after spending many years as an actor/director/playwright. Among his awards are a Playwriting Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and two Critics’ Choice awards from the Samuel French Short Play Festivals. He received his BA in English from CUNY-Hunter College in New York, his MA in Theatre from Northern Illinois University, and his PhD in Theatre Research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Recently he published two books, Stanislavski in Ireland: Focus at Fifty and Breaking Boundaries: A Anthology of Original Plays from the Focus Theatre, as well as Andrew P. Wilson and the Early Irish and Scottish National Theatres, 1911-1950 and Stage Plays: An Introductory Anthology. He has published articles and reviews in Theatre History Studies, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Theatre Symposium, Southern Theatre, David Mamet Review, Theatre Journal, Prospects, the Oxford Companion to United States History, Holocaust Literature, and Reference Guide to Holocaust Literature. He directs free Shakespeare plays in the park each summer in Tuscaloosa for the Rude Mechanicals and is the Chair of the Playwriting Committee for SETC.