Douglas Eacho

I research the history of how the performing arts have responded to the modern emergence of computational media. Currents of political, racial, and economic thought course beneath projects of technological stage reform. Surfacing them can shed light on broader debates about social reproduction, stagnation, and service work.

My writing follows three threads: first, charting vanguard live artists of the past and present who have reflected on technical change through their own practice. Second, establishing a material history of how computation entered performance via backstage technical theatre. Third, I write on performance theory and the ‘intermedial theatre’ canon, advocating for a turn to historical materialism in these fields. 

Since 2020, I have taught at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. There I also serve as Assistant Director, Academic of the BMO Lab in Creative Research in the Arts, Emerging Technologies, Performance, and AI.