Cleary's primary research and production interests are in North American theater and political performance, women playwrights and performers, playwriting and puppetry. Her article on Naomi Wallace's In the Heart of America appeared in the Spring 2002 Journal of American Drama and Theatre. Cleary has directed Wallace's Slaughter City and The Retreating World, both at Macalester, and she is writing a book about Wallace's work. Cleary has directed readings of new works by Jerome and McKnight Fellows at the Minneapolis Playwrights' Center. Cleary's own recent plays, Findings Uncertain: A Play about Adoption in Three Pieces, and Break: A Short Play about Women and Work, have received readings at the Playwrights'Center in Minneapolis. She is currently researching African American performance under the 1930s Federal Theater Project and is co-authoring a book on the Buffalo Historical Marionettes of the WPA. She has written on political performance from the 1960s and feminist dance performance dealing with incarceration. Cleary has worked with and studied the internationally known Peter Schummann and The Bread and Puppet Theater of Vermont. Cleary has been teaching at Macalester since 1993.
Journal Articles
Haunting the Social Unconscious: Naomi Wallace's In the Heart of America, Journal of American Drama and Theater (2002)
Plays
Contributions to Books
Directing and Dramaturgy
Seven Jewish Children, Palestinian Cultural Day/Educators Workshop on Divestment and Sanctions/Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed Conference (2009)
Three public performances March - May 2009.