Academic Bio: Gillian Hemme is a PhD Candidate in the Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama program at Northwestern University. She received her BA in Theatre from Grinnell College and her MA in Theatre and Performative Practices from University College Cork. She studies performance within and about sites of institutionalized violence in twentieth-century Ireland. Her work uses embodied practices to understand the role of performance in the lives of women who were incarcerated in Catholic Church-run institutions, including Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes. She has directed Piven Theatre Workshop’s EPIC (Ensemble Play in Corrections) program at Cook County Jail since co-founding it in 2016 with Beth Voitik Terlizzi. At Northwestern, she is a recipient of a Mellon Cluster Fellowship in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Gillian is also a performer, playwright, and director.