Ayanna Thompson
Ayanna Thompson is a Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, and the Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She is the author of many titles, including Blackface, and Shakespeare in the Theatre: Peter Sellars. She is currently collaborating with Curtis Perry on the Arden4 edition of Titus Andronicus.
In 2021, Thompson was appointed to the board of trustees of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in 2020 she became a Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at The Public Theater in New York. She serves on the board of Play On Shakespeare, and previously served on the board for Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington, DC.
She served as the President of the Shakespeare Association of America, one of Phi Beta Kappa’s Visiting Scholars, a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Marshall Scholars, and in 2021 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Thompson is an Associate Scholar and the chair of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Research Board, and was recently elected to the Folger Shakespeare Library Board of Governors.
Non-profit board membership
Board of Governors, The Royal Shakespeare Company | 2021–present
Board of Governors, The Folger Shakespeare Library | 2021–present
Board Member, The National Parks Arts Foundation | 2021–present
Board Member, Play On Shakespeare | 2020–present
Council of Scholars, Theatre for a New Audience | 2017–present
Board Member, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company | 2017–2018
Board of Directors, Association of Marshall Scholars | 2015–2017
Research funding
Ayanna Thompson is the recipient of many grants and research awards totaling just under $5 million. She is the PI on projects funded by the Mellon Foundation, the Hitz Foundation, the Presidential Strategic Initiative Grant at ASU, and the Arizona Community Foundation. She is the Co-PI on projects funded by SSRC-NEH, the Mellon Foundation, and the Institute for Humanities Research at ASU.
