Ira S. Murfin is a theatre artist, writer and scholar based in Chicago. His research and interdisciplinary performance work concern the relationship between talk, text, and the performance event. He is currently completing a dissertation on extemporaneous talk, media, and artistic discipline in the post-1960s American avant-garde in the Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre & Drama at Northwestern University. Performance work has been presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago Cultural Center, Links Hall, Sector 2337, and the Rhinoceros Theater Festival, among other places. He also occasionally makes work as a founding member of the devised theatre collective The Laboratory for the Development of Substitute Materials. Critical and creative writing has appeared in Theatre Topics, Theatre Journal, Theatre Research International, Review of Contemporary Fiction, 491, elimae, Fiction at Work, Chicago Art Criticism, Chicago Arts Journal, and Requited, where he is also Performance Editor.