Ryan Donovan is Assistant Professor of Theater Studies at Duke University.

His first book, Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity (Oxford University Press), won the 2024 Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, was selected for NPR’s 2023 Books We Love list, and appeared on Time Out New York's list of the top twelve theater books of the past three years. Broadway Bodies examines the body politics of casting Broadway musicals in the five decades beginning in 1970.

Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama commissioned his second book, Queer Approaches in Musical Theatre, as part of the inaugural cohort of the Topics in Musical Theatre series. He also co-edited The Routledge Companion to Musical Theatre (with Laura MacDonald).

He is President and founder (along with Jessica Sternfeld and Elizabeth L. Wollman) of the International Society for the Study of Musicals.

Ryan has appeared on NPR’s The Takeaway, WNYC’s Morning Edition, numerous podcasts, and been interviewed by the New York Times, the LA Times, and Teen Vogue, among others.