Barker Takes Over as UCI Drama Chair Today

Stephen F. Barker takes over today as chairman of the UC Irvine drama department, succeeding department founder Robert Cohen, who has been chairman since 1969.

Barker, whose five-year appointment coincides with his elevation to associate professor of drama, came to UCI in 1987 from a teaching post at the University of Arizona, where he received his doctorate in literary theory and criticism.

Cohen, who will continue teaching at UCI as a professor of drama, said in February he would be giving up the department chairmanship to focus on writing and to take a post as co-artistic director at Theatre 40 in Los Angeles.

Barker, 44, has written on Nietzsche, Faulkner, Beckett and Cocteau and has performed as both a dancer and actor at such places as the London Contemporary Dance Theatre in London and the Cafe La Mama in New York.

In 1989, Barker co-directed the Jean Cocteau Centenary Festival at UCI, also staging and choreographing his translated version of Cocteau’s “Orphee.”