Shelby McKelvey-Petro, PhD (@shelbywhippetphd.bsky.social)

Further Notes on Seeing Eye Performance and Collective Care | JHUP Theatre My essay in the June 2025 issue of Theatre Journal offers a performance history of The Seeing Eye (TSE), a charitable organization founded in the Depression era in order to systematically breed and train German shepherds (and later, other dog breeds) to work as guides for the blind. It was the first organization of its kind in the United States. That by 1990 the organization had trained 10,000 dogs to partner with blind human companions offers one measure of TSE’s success. That the popular appellation “Seeing Eye Dog” would eventually come to stand in for all guide dogs, regardless of provenance, offers another. The idea that such an organization warrants historical analysis perhaps requires little justification. But the suggestion that performance studies offers the best tools to do so may require some elaboration. https://www.jhuptheatre.org/theatre-journal/online-content/issue/volume-77-issue-2-june-2025/further-notes-seeing-eye