For media requests, use the contact form here.
Books
Professional Wrestling: What the World Is Watching Now. University Press of Mississippi [forthcoming].
Performance in Popular Culture. Routledge, 2023.
Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle. University Press of Mississippi, 1998. Second edition, 2020.
I have loved me a man: the life and times of Mika. Auckland University Press, 2018.
Instructor’s Manual for The HBJ Anthology of World Drama (now the Wadsworth Anthology of Drama), edited by William B. Worthen, 1992. Second edition, 1996. Third edition, 1999.
Edited Books/Journals
Professional Wrestling: Politics & Populism, with Eero Laine, Nell Haynes & Heather Levi co-editors. Seagull Books/University of Chicago Press, 2020.
The Intricate Art of Caring...and Other New Zealand Plays. Seagull Books, 2018.
“Old Ways of Knowing, New Ways of Doing.” Proceedings: Ka Haka Māori and Indigenous Performance Studies Symposium. Te Kaharoa, Special Edition 13.3 (January 2019).
“Empowering Performance.” Proceedings: Ka Haka Māori and Indigenous Performance Studies Symposium. Te Kaharoa, Special Edition 9.2 (September 2016)
Articles / Chapters in Books
“Colonial Combat: Professional Wrestling and the (Re)imagining of History in Aotearoa New Zealand.” In the Handbook on the Global Civic Imagination, Henry Jenkins & Sangita Shresthova (eds). Forthcoming 2026.
“How to Read a Journal,” Performance Research. Forthcoming 2026.
“Māori Theatre in Not-Quite-Post-Colonial Aotearoa New Zealand.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre and Race, edited by Tiziana Morosetti & Osita Okabue. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
“A Mega Power Implodes: Donald Trump, Presidential Performativity, and Professional Wrestling.” In Professional Wrestling: Politics and Populism, edited by Sharon Mazer, Eero Laine, Nell Haynes, and Heather Levi. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2020.
“From Performance to Performativity: The Christchurch Mosque Murders and What Came After.” Te Kaharoa 5.1 (February 2020).
“A Bicultural Dream in Aotearoa New Zealand: (De)Colonising Shakespeare?” Te Kaharoa 12.1 (July 2019).
“Uneasy Reckonings: A Response to ‘The Theorist and the Theorized: Indigenous Critiques of Performance Studies’ by Stephanie Nohelani Teves’.” TDR63.2 (Summer 2019): 195-199.
“That was then, this is now: Māori Performance Research Comes of Age.” Te Kaharoa: The eJournal on Indigenous Pacific Issues 13.3 (January 2019): 1-7.
“Introduction.” Ka Haka Special Edition, Te Kaharoa 13.3 (January 2019).
“New Hazardscapes for Old: Rupture, Resilience, Resistance.” Performance Research 22.4-5 ‘On Reflection – Turning 100’ (2018) 111-115.
“Donald Trump Shoots the Match” (definitive version). TDR 62.2 (T238, Summer 2018) 175-200.
“Sharon Mazer Responds to Warden, Chow, and Laine.” TDR 62.2 (T238, Summer 2018) 216-219.
“Donald Trump Shoots the Match.” TDR (August 2017).
“The Speculative Act in Theatre and Performance Studies.” In Popular Entertainment Studies 8.1 (2017) 86-91.
“The Game of Life.” In Performance and Professional Wrestling. Editors: Broderick Chow, Eero Laine and Claire Warden. Routledge, 2017. 196-206.
“Introduction.” In Te Kaharoa, Special Edition – Ka Haka. Editor: Sharon Mazer. 9.2 (2016): iv-vii.
“Breaking the Stage: From Te Matatini to Footprints/Tapuwae.” With Te Rita Papesch. In Te Kaharoa, Special Edition – Ka Haka. Editor: Sharon Mazer. 9.2 (2016): 107-126.
“Missing the Drama: Staging Communities without Conflict.” In Journal of Dramatic Theory & Criticism 30:2 (Spring 2016): 7-20.
“From Waka to Haka: Performative Voyaging in the 21st Century.” In “‘The Vessel Will Embrace Us’: Contemporary Pacific Voyaging in Oceanic Theatre”, Performance Research 21:2 (March 2016): 43-46.
“Quake City.” In Performance Research 20:3 (June 2015): 163-172.
“A Case for Creative Misunderstanding.” In Te Kaharoa Special Edition, the Kōwhiti Atarau collection 8:2 (May 2015) 87-104. Also: In Kōwhiti Atarau, edited by Peter Cleave. Auckland: Campus Press, 2015. 103-120.
“But can it be Art? Kapa Haka as a contemporary indigenous performance practice.” With Te Rita Papesch. In Te Kaharoa Special Edition, the Kōwhiti Atarau collection 8:2 (May 2015): 105-118. Also: In Kōwhiti Atarau, edited by Peter Cleave. Auckland: Campus Press, 2015. 121-134.
“Here as Elsewhere: Thinking Theatrically / Acting Locally.” In Antipodes 28.1 (June 2014): 39-50.
“Skirting Burlesque.” In Australasian Drama Studies63 (October 2013): 24-32.
“Reflections on Theatre and Performance in the (post-) Earthquake Zone.” Author and curator of collection of essays and play-excerpts. In Australasian Drama Studies 62 (June 2013): 68-88.
“A National Theatre in New Zealand? Why/Not?” In Theatre and Performance in Small Nations. Editor: Steve Blandford. Intellect Books, 2012. 107-122.
“Native Drag: Mika on the Mirror Ball Stage.” In Theatre Annual: A Journal of Performance Studies64 (2011): 27-43.
“Performance: Ethnographer/Tourist/Cannibal.” In Australasian Drama Studies 59 (October 2011): 104-120.
“You Talkin’ to Me? Eavesdropping on the Conversation at Te Matatini Māori Performing Arts Festival.” In Performance Research 16:2 (June 2011): 44-49.
“Performing Māori: Kapa Haka on the Stage and on the Ground.” In Popular Entertainment Studies2:1 (March 2011): 41-53.
“Māori Performance/Cultural Performance: Stages of Pōwhiri” (with Te Rita Papesch). In Ngā Kete a Rēhua: Inaugural Māori Research Symposium Te Waipounamu Conference Proceedings. U of Canterbury, 2010. 276-281.
“Atamira Dance Collective: Dancing in the Footsteps of the Ancestors.” In Performing Aotearoa: New Zealand Theatre and Drama in an Age of Transition. Editors: Marc Maufort and David O’Donnell. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang S.A., 2007. 283-292.
“‘Real’ Life.” In Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling. Editor: Nicholas Sammond. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. 67-87.
“Los verdaderos luchadores no usan mascaras” (“Real Wrestlers Don’t Wear Masks”). In Luna Córnea (Centro de la Imagen), no. 27 (2004): 270-5; 323-5.
“The Power Team: Muscular Christianity and the Spectacle of Conversion.” In Performance Studies. Editor: Erin Striff. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 14-28.
“Documenting the Other Others in Bi-Cultural New Zealand.” In Pedagogy 2:3 (Fall 2002): 382-391.
“Watching Wrestling/Writing Performance.” In Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture. Editors: Henry Jenkins, Tara McPherson, Jane Shattuc. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. 270-286.
“‘She’s so Fat…’: Facing the Fat Lady at Coney Island’s Sideshows by the Seashore.” In Bodies out of Bounds: Being Fat in America. Editors: Jana Evans Braziel and Kathleen LeBesco. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. 256-276.
“Real Men Don’t Wear Shirts: The Construction and Representation of Masculinity in Professional Wrestling.” In Body Show/s: Australian Viewings of Live Performance. Editor: Peta Tait. Rodopi Theatre Series. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 2000.114-123.
“Introduction” to “Svetlana’s New Flame,” by Olga Humphrey. In Perishable Theatre’s Sixth Annual Women’s Playwriting Festival. Seattle: Rain City Projects, 1998.
“Introduction” to “Henry’s Holiday,” by Julie Lewis. InPerishable Theatre’s Fifth Annual Women’s Playwriting Festival. Seattle: Rain City Projects, 1997.
“The Power Team: Muscular Christianity and the Spectacle of Conversion.” In TDR: The Drama Review 38:4 (T144, Winter 1994): 162-188.
“‘She’s so Fat…’: Facing the Fat Lady at Coney Island’s Sideshows by the Seashore.” In Theatre Annual: A Journal of Performance Studies 47 (1994).
“Introduction,” adapted from Tucker Brooke’s original Shakespeare of Stratford (1926) for the reissue of The Yale Shakespeare. NY: Barnes & Noble, 1993.
“The Doggie Doggie World of Professional Wrestling.” InTDR: The Drama Review 34:4 (T128, Winter 1990): 96-122.