PhD, University of California, Los Angeles MA, English, University of California Los Angeles BA (Highest Honors), English and Theatre, Loyola Marymount University
Bio
An expert on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theatre, Professor Payne has published on topics ranging from the Restoration actress to baroque opera. She is the editor of “The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre” (Cambridge, 2000); “Four Restoration Libertine Plays” (Oxford, 2005); and “Revisiting Shakespeare’s Lost Play: Cardenio/Double Falsehood in the Eighteenth Century” (Palgrave, 2016). Recently, she published "The Business of English Restoration Theatre, 1660 - 1700" (Cambridge UP, 2024) and, co-authored with Drew Lichtenberg, "Shakespeare in the Theatre: Shakespeare Theatre Company" (Arden/Bloomsbury, 2024).
In addition to her scholarly activities, Professor Payne has worked as a dramaturge and literary consultant for theatre and opera companies in Washington, D.C., including The Shakespeare Theatre Company, where she served as their Humanities Research Consultant for several years. Her teaching interests include Restoration and eighteenth-century drama; Shakespeare in Performance; drama and theory; and Modern British drama.
Professor Payne has been the recipient of fellowships from the NEH, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Huntington Library, the Williams Andrew Clark Memorial Library, and American University. In spring 2014, she lectured at the Universidad de Sevilla on a Fulbright Fellowship. She has won distinguished teaching awards from both the College of Arts and Sciences and the University.
