DeAnna Toten Beard

DeAnna Toten Beard, MFA, PhD is Professor of Theatre History and teaches a variety of theatre studies courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. Dr. Toten Beard joined the Baylor faculty in August 2002 and has served many roles in the Department of Theatre Arts. After five years as Associate Chair of Theatre Arts (2013-2018), Dr. Toten Beard was appointed Chair in 2018.  Previously, she served seven years as Graduate Program Director of Theatre Arts (2008-2015). In 2012, she was named a Baylor Teaching Fellow. Dr. Toten Beard has also taught in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core and served as co-director of the Baylor in Oxford study abroad program from 2014-2019.

Dr. Toten Beard is an active historian with research interests in early twentieth century U.S. theatre and popular entertainment. Her specializations include depictions of World War I on the American stage, American modernist theatre literature, and the history of modernist theatre design in the United States. Among her scholarly publications are “The Little Theatre Movement” in Blackwell’s Companion to American Literature (Blackwells, 2020); “Inspiration and Atmosphere in Getting Together A War Play: Stage Authenticity and the WWI Soldier on the Broadway Stage” in Theatre Annual (2015);  “Performance, Preparedness, and Playing with Fire: Major General O'Ryan and U.S. Military Theatricality in the World War I Era” in Public Theatre and Theatre Publics (Cambridge, 2012); “Artisan to Artist: The Impact of Gallery Exhibitions of New Stagecraft in the U.S., 1914-1919” in New England Theatre Journal (2007); “‘The Power of Woman’s Influence’: Nineteenth-Century Temperance Theatricality and the Drama of Nellie H. Bradley” in Theatre History Studies (2006); and "American Experimentalism, American Expressionism, and Early O'Neill" in A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama (Blackwells, 2005).  She is the author of the monograph, Sheldon Cheney’s Theatre Arts Magazine: Promoting a Modern American Theatre, 1916-1921 (2009). She has also contributed numerous scholarly book reviews and reference articles for theatre history reference sources,. For several years, Dr. Toten Beard served as the editor of The Texas Theatre Journal, published annually by the Texas Educational Theatre Association.

Dr. Toten Beard devotes professional service to the work of the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST). She is currently the President of the NAST and a member of the Board of Directors.  From 2012-2017, she served as Commissioner for NAST and as Chair of the Commission on Accreditation from 2017-2020. She was Vice President of the Association from 2020-2023. She has served as a visiting evaluator of theatre programs around the country for NAST accreditation.   Dr. Toten Beard also currently sits on the Board of the Council of Arts Accrediting Associations.   

Her artistic work includes directing, including Sister Suffragettes (Baylor Theatre 2020), Who Am I This Time (Baylor Theatre 2017), The Underpants (Baylor Theatre 2015), Quartet with Grand Piano (Baylor Theatre 2012), and God and Mammon (Out of the Loop Festival 2005) which she also authored. Her original play Mount Abundance was given a staged reading at Baylor in 2021. Thanks to close collaborators in the Baylor Film and Digital Media department, Dr. Toten Beard has also appeared in several independent films including Age of Bryce directed by Brian Elliott and David Feagan for which she won Best Comic Actress at the Garden State Film Festival (2020) and Best Actor (Female) at the On the Beach International Film Festival in Bulgaria (2020).

DeAnna Toten Beard earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre History, Literature, and Criticism from Indiana University, a Master of Fine Arts in Dramaturgy from Stony Brook University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and English Literature from the University of Mary Washington.

Dr. Toten Beard has been married for 32 years to Kemper Beard and they share two amazing adult children, Gracie Beard (Baylor, BA Anthropology 2016) and Henry Beard (Baylor, BFA Theatre Design and Technology 2020). She enjoys traveling, making art, walking and hiking, jigsaw puzzles, cooking, and spoiling her two golden doodles. She is a longtime member of St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church in Waco where she serves as a worship assistant and co-leader of the fine arts ministry.