Dr. Chelsea Phillips is a professional dramaturg, theatre historian, and Associate Professor at Villanova University. Her research interests include women, Shakespeare, and the eighteenth-century theatre. Her first book, Carrying All Before Her: Celebrity Pregnancy and the London Stage 1689-1800, is available now for pre-order from the University of Delaware Press and will be released on 14 January 2022. Research for the project was funded by generous grants from the Folger Library, the Lewis Walpole Library, Villanova University, and Ohio State University. Her work has appeared in Theatre Survey, Theatre Journal, Women's History, and a variety of edited collections. Her article, "Bodies in Play: Maternity, Repertory, and the Rival Romeo and Juliets, 1748-1751" (Theatre Survey, May 2019) won the 2020 Gerald Kahan Scholar's Prize from the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR). She is also an associate director for the international Perceptions of Pregnancy Researcher’s Network, and co-convenes the Pregnancy and Motherhood working group for the American Society for Theatre Research. As a dramaturg, she has worked with Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael R. Jackson, New Dramatist resident writer J. Julian Christopher, Manhattan Shakespeare Project, the for/word company, Uncut Pages Theatre, and artists from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Folger Shakespeare Theatre, and the American Shakespeare Center, among others. At Villanova, she has helped develop and produce new works by Owen McCafferty, Douglas Carter Beane, Kathryn Petersen, Julia Izumi, Michael Hollinger, and James Ijames. Chelsea received her MFA in Dramaturgy from Mary Baldwin University/The American Shakespeare Center, and her doctorate from Ohio State University.