He holds a Ph.D. in theatre studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and he holds an MFA in acting from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has published in the field of Chicano theatre and popular performance, but his primary work centers on the intersection of performance, ethnicity and power in the nineteenth century U.S. West. He is completing a book-length manuscript on performance in California during the transition from Mexican to U.S. rule, titled "Rehearsing California: Californios, Anglos, and the Making of the Usonian West." His piece “The Paduanos and the Theatrical Construction of California's Mexican Past” appears in Querying Difference in Theatre History. He has been published in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, the Latin American Theatre Review, and Comparative Drama.