Ayanna Thompson

Ayanna Thompson is a Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University and the Executive Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies (ACMRS). She was elected to the British Academy in 2025 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021. Thompson is the author of numerous books, including Blackface (Bloomsbury, 2021), Shakespeare in the Theatre: Peter Sellars (Arden Bloomsbury, 2018), Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose: A Student-Centred Approach (co-authored with Laura Turchi, Arden Bloomsbury, 2016), Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America (Oxford University Press, 2011), and Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage (Routledge, 2008). She also collaborated with Curtis Perry on the Arden4 edition of Titus Andronicus (Arden, 2026) and wrote the introduction for the revised Arden3 edition of Othello (Arden, 2016). In addition, she is the editor of several collections, including The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance (Palgrave, 2010), and Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance (Routledge, 2006). Thompson is widely recognized for her public-facing work with theater companies and serves as a Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at The Public Theater in New York, where she has also worked as a dramaturg and text consultant on Broadway productions including Romeo + Juliet, Uncle Vanya, and Macbeth. She currently serves on the boards of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the National Parks Arts Foundation, Red Bull Theater, and Play On Shakespeare, and previously served on the boards of the Association of Marshall Scholars and Woolly Mammoth Theatre. She is a past president of the Shakespeare Association of America. Thompson holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, an M.A. from the University of Sussex, and an A.B. from Columbia University.