Participant Info

First Name
Chelsea
Last Name
Phillips
Country
United States
State
PA
Affiliation
Villanova University
Website URL
Keywords
performance, celebrity, pregnancy, motherhood, theatre, British history, eighteenth-century, Shakespeare
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

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About Me
Chelsea Phillips is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University whose work sits at the intersection of women, eighteenth-century theatre, and the histories of medicine, pregnancy, and celebrity.
Her first monograph, Carrying All Before Her: Celebrity Pregnancy and the London Stage 1689-1800 (University of Delaware Press, 2022) reconstructs the histories of six celebrity women to investigate how pregnancy impacted theatrical culture. The book received an honorable mention for the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender’s First Book prize. Phillips is also the recipient of the 2020 Gerald Kahan Scholars’ Prize from the American Society for Theatre Research, and the 20245 Annibel Jenkins prize from the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
She is also a professional dramaturg and proud member of the R/18 Collective, which provides advocacy and dramaturgical support for theatre companies producing eighteenth-century drama.
Recent Publications

Scholarly Editing

Such Things Are (1787) by Elizabeth Inchbald, in The Broadview Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama, ed. Diana Solomon and David Weston(Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2024).

Articles

 “Care and Pregnancy Loss.” ABO: Interactive Journal for Women and the Arts, 1640-1830 13, no 2, article 16 (December 2023). Tampa, FL: University of South Florida, Tampa. http://doi.org/10.5038/2157-7129.13.2.1382.

  “Accommodations for Pregnancy and Childbirth on the Late-Eighteenth Century London Stage.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, 56, no 3 (2023), 425-447. Winner of the 2025 Annibel Jenkins Prize. https://doi.org/10.1353/ecs.2023.0031.

Phillips, C., KL Bradley, V Brown, L Davis, K Fischer, A Gonzalez, J Bean Schwab, T Storey, S Stryker (2023). “The Dramaturgy of Ophelia’s Bouquet.” Shakespeare, 19(1), 108-124.

“Bodies in Play: Maternity, Repertory, and the Rival Romeo and Juliets, 1748-1751.” Theatre Survey (60.2), 207-236. Spring 2019. Winner of the 2020 Gerald Kahan Scholar’s Prize. 7 citations.

Media Coverage
Country Focus
UK
Expertise by Geography
Atlantic, United Kingdom
Expertise by Chronology
18th century
Expertise by Topic
Gender, Literary History, Medicine, Public History, Women