Rachel Shteir is Associate Professor and the Head of the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Program at the Theatre School at DePaul University. Before coming to Chicago, she taught at many conservatories and liberal arts institutions nationwide including Yale, Carnegie Mellon, Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia, the National Theatre Institute and Bates College.

Dr. Shteir has published widely in magazines and newspapers including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, American Theatre, and the Nation. She is also a working dramaturg who has worked on Beaumarchais' Marriage of Figaro at Target Margin Theatre in New York. Recent projects in Chicago include Dean Corrin's Battle of the Bands at Victory Gardens, Sister Carrie at Lookingglass, Maria Arndt at Steppenwolf, and Guys and Dolls at the Court.

In addition, she has done work in New Media and Dramaturgy at the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre in New York City. There she created several projects dealing with the avant-garde and new media and taught an interactive theatre course to students at SUNY Binghamton.

She has appeared on television documentaries about striptease and burlesque on the History Channel and E! and been featured in many national magazines and newspapers.

Dr. Shteir holds an MFA and a DFA in Dramaturgy from the Yale School of Drama and a B.A. from the University of Chicago.

Striptease: the Untold History of the Girlie Show, her book about the history of striptease, is her first book.