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The University of Missouri-Kansas City
Department of Theatre
Introducing students in
the
Master
of Arts degree program in Theatre
(Theatre History/Dramatic
Literature and Dramaturgy and Playwriting) 2008-2009
Beginning their M.A. studies in Fall 2009:
Peter Jon Bakely earned his B.A. in Communication Arts at Park
University. He continued working with various theatre companies,
including Missouri Repertory Theatre and Heart of America
Shakespeare Festival, during his sixteen years of employment
with an electronics company.
Erin Kimberly DeSeure
holds a BFA in Theatre Performance from Chapman University in
Orange, CA. Erin is a Kansas City, Kansas, native and
after living in the LA and DC metropolitan areas for the past
five years, she is ready to get back to her roots as a theatre
artist. Erin is working as a dramaturg this season for
The
Laramie Project and
looks forward to performing in, collaborating on and attending
theatre throughout Kansas City.
She holds a GTA position co-teaching Theatre 130:
Foundations of Theatre.
Natalie Magill
has a B.F.A. in Acting from Stephens College, which she now
seeks to complement with graduate study of the theatre’s history
and literature. As Natalie Liccardello, she has performed with
various Kansas City professional theatres. Recent roles have
included Anne Frank in And
Then They Came for Me at the Coterie, Athena in
The Death of Cupid at
the Fringe Festival, and Catherine in
A View from the Bridge
at MET Ensemble Theatre. She is this year’s GTA for advising
undergraduates and teaching Theatre 100.
Glenn Mills
earned his B.A. in Marketing with a minor in Spanish at
Southwest Baptist University, and he has done graduate work in
Professional Writing at UMKC. This summer he has been reading
plays for the Unicorn and will be dramaturg for the Unicorn-UMKC
Theatre co-production of
Farragut North. As a GTA, he will co-teach Foundations of
Theatre with Erin DeSeure.
Beginning their M.A. Studies in Spring Semester 2010
Andrea Anderson
earned her BA in Dramatic Arts from Trevecca Nazarene
University, Nashville, TN. She has served four years as the
drama ministry director at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in
Liberty, MO. She looks forward to beginning the Master of Arts
program next spring.
Tracy Terstriep Herber earned her BA in English Literature
at UCLA, and got a theatrical start at Long Beach Civic Light
Opera. She then spent the next 15 years as a working
actress/dancer on Broadway and National tours. Some highlights
include the original Broadway casts of
The Producers,
Fosse, and
A Christmas Carol. New
York training included both working and studying with Wynn
Handman of The American Place Theatre, and New York Shakespeare
Festival/Public Theatre. She has choreographed for film,
television and theatre, taught master classes in theatrical
dance across the country. She most recently held a teaching
position of theatre and acting at Montgomery College. And in the
last year has relocated to Kansas City with her husband and two
young children.
Continuing their studies in the M.A. program:
Megan
A. Baker
earned her B.A. in Communication and Theatre arts from
Sterling College in Sterling, Kansas. Since entering the Master
of Arts program at UMKC, she has served as dramaturg for UMKC’s
production of Five by Tenn
(+one) and has taught two semesters of Foundations of
Theatre. This past
summer she completed an internship with the Heart of America
Shakespeare Festival’s Shakespeare camps and began her journey
as a script reader for the Unicorn Theatre. This upcoming
season, she will work as editor and chief writer for
Theatre Training News
and dramaturg the UMKC/Unicorn production of
Miss Witherspoon.
Tanya Barber
spent the 2008-2009 academic year as the new director of H.E.A.R.T
Theatre Co., a K-12 theatre program for home educated students.
She spent the fall semester teaching acting classes for these
students. In December, Tanya directed short pieces
for UMKC's playwright showcase. Tanya performed in the 2008
Equity Showcase last summer and appeared as Elizabeth Proctor in
Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre's Fall production of
The
Crucible. She also
played Lenny in the MET's script in hand production of
Crimes of the Heart at
the Kansas City Public Library and was in two short plays
in Potluck Productions' Women's Playwright Showcase. Most
recently, with her HTC students, Tanya produced and directed her
very first full length play, setting Shakespeare's
Much Ado About Nothing
in a 1945 night club!
Anthony Bernal
II,
a proud native of Kansas City, assists music director Anthony
Edwards at Bar Natasha.
School projects have included dramaturgy for
The Darker Face of the
Earth, dialect coach for
Our Town and
Cloud 9, voice coach
for The Trojan Women,
and director of the undergraduate production of
The Most Fabulous Story
Ever Told by Paul Rudnick; he also appeared as Morris in
Present Laughter. Last
season Tony performed in the Coterie’s world premiere of
The Happy Elf by Harry Connick Jr. Tony is a graduate of Kansas
University and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA)
in New York City.
Tony is a member of VASTA.
Thomas Canfield has a Ph.D. in English, with a concentration in Elizabethan
drama, from the University of Louisiana. Since joining UMKC
Theatre in 2006, he has been chief writer for the '07 and '08
editions of Theatre
Training News and an archivist in the Patricia McIlrath
Center for Mid-American Theatre. He also has been dramaturg for
The Country Wife and Great
Expectations at UMKC, and will be working on this season’s
production of A Midsummer
Night’s Dream. At the K.C. Rep, he was dramaturg for the
2007 production of King Lear, and wrote program essays for
Gee’s Bend and The Drawer Boy.
For the last three summers, he also has been dramaturg for the
Heart of America Shakespeare Festival’s productions of
Romeo and Juliet,
Othello, and
The Merry Wives of Windsor.
This summer, he gave a presentation on "The Many Faces of
Falstaff" as part of a lecture series at the Kansas City Public
Library and worked as a new script reader for the Unicorn
theatre, in addition to teaching English and Humanities at
Grantham University and National American University. Thomas is
writing his thesis on the Circle theatre (1962-67), Kansas
City’s first professional Equity playhouse.
James Dean
Carter earned his BA in Theatre from Missouri State University. He has
been a resident of Kansas City for the last seven years and had
been a director in community theatre for 15 years. He has
directed plays such as To
Kill A Mockingbird and
A Few Good Men. He has also directed musicals such as
The Wizard of Oz,
A Chorus Line and
Jesus Christ Superstar.
While living in Kansas City, he has directed Aeschylus's
Oresteia trilogy and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. This year, James holds the GTA position in
mentoring and advising undergraduates. He will also be teaching
Foundations of Theatre with Megan Baker and Johnny Wolfe. James
will be dramaturg for the Coterie-UMKC co-production of
Our Town.
Estrella Cordero
completed her B.A. in English
at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She has been a
full-time instructor of Shakespeare and reader’s theatre for
students in at-risk communities in the public school system of
Miami. She is currently reading scripts for the Unicorn Theater
and looks forward to working with children in theatre.
Thomas
Czerkawski
holds a
BFA in Theatre Performance from Auburn University in Auburn,
Alabama. After ten years of working in various financial and
media services positions, he is focusing on a course of theatre
studies that leads to the Ph.D. and directing opportunities.
Meanwhile he continues his work with Kansas City’s Theatre of
the Imagination. This year he is working in the Bloch School,
directing an original play by a Kansas City native, and serving
as dramaturg for Tartuffe.
Thomas and his wife Patrice have four children.
Bobbie Jeffrey
is debuting her new theatre major and minor this fall at Calvary
Bible College where she directs and teaches theatre. Last
spring she received a Graduate Assistant Fellowship to study
Shakespearean directing styles at the Royal Shakespeare Company
and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where she had the
opportunity to interview and research many top directors, attend
rehearsals, and see a plethora of fabulous shows. She's
teaching a Shakespeare course at CBC this fall where she hopes
to pry open the brains of many unsuspecting students and stuff
much of what she learned at the feet of the Bard's disciples
into their innocent craniums. She without a doubt will
bring them all to Felicia's lecture on the true identity of one
William Shakspur of Stratford-upon-Avon. Recently
transitioning out of her position as founder and artistic
director of h.e.a.r.t. theatre company, a company for home
educated students, she passed the torch to fellow M.A. student
Tanya Barber. After being the senior MA candidate in this
program for far too long, she expects to graduate in December of
2009.
Johnny Wolfe
earned
his BA in Theatre with emphasis in directing from the University
of Nevada, Las Vegas. At UNLV, he worked on the development of
new plays and directed seven original works by MFA Playwrights.
His directing credits there include
The Dying House, recipient of the ACTF award for direction, and
Harold Pinter’s Betrayal,
which was produced on the Las Vegas Strip. At UMKC last season,
he was dramaturg for The
Cure at Troy and taught Foundations. which he will do again
along with Megan Baker and James Carter. This summer he served
as dramaturg for Taking
Sides at Actors Theatre KC and was an intern to the managing
director of Kansas City Repertory Theatre. This season he will
be directing Nadya with Professor Tom Mardikes as well as one of the
Five by Tenn pieces.
He will also be dramaturg/assistant director for UMKC’s premiere
of a new dramatization of
The Master and Margarita.
Johnny is married to actress Meredith Wolfe.
Alumni
Kara Armstrong
earned her B.A. at Loyola University in Chicago. She has worked
for Heart of America Shakespeare Festival for thirteen years and
is currently their Education Director. She has taught children’s
classes for The Coterie, Kansas City Rep, Academy of the Arts
and St. Peter’s School. At UMKC Kara served as dramaturg for
several productions, directed the Women’s Center’s wildly
successful three-performance run of
The Vagina Monologues
in February 2002, and directed three UMKC Department of Theatre
undergraduate productions. With Michael Smith, she founded
Princess Squid Productions. Kara wrote her thesis on women
mentors in 20th-century Kansas City theatre, including Patricia
McIlrath, Susan Dinges, Georgia Brown, Lenore Anthony, and
Cecile Burton. She was an adjunct instructor of theatre arts at
Benedictine College for three semesters. She and her husband
Brian Paisner are the parents of Violet Mae, born in March 2006,
and Matilda, born in July 2009.
Carol Banks
is enjoying some time out with four grandchildren, including a
set of triplets, all born in 2002. She also continues high
school substitute teaching and keeping up with Irish women
dramatists.
Steven
Bartkoski
earned his B.A. in Film and Theatre at the University of Kansas
in 2005, where he was a photographer for the
University Daily Kansan
and was president of his Scholarship hall. He has acted, built
scenery, designed lighting, and worked in a steel plant. During
the summer of 2007 he held a summer internship with Wright/Laird
Casting (816-531-0331) and worked on Kevin Wilmott’s film,
The Only Good Indian.
He wrote his thesis on the Grand Opera House and completed it
just when the historic structure was being demolished during the
spring of 2009. He currently works in Kansas City doing
free-lance theatre and film production.
Katrina Darden Bondari
is from Lenox, Georgia. She earned her BFA in theatre at Valdosta State
University, where she worked on all aspects of production,
including dramaturgy. Her website www.theatrekat.com <http://www.theatrekat.com>
includes tips for dramaturgs and GTAs, all based upon her own
experience. Kat has professional theatre experience as a scenic
artist, house manager, and company manager at Jekyll Island
Music Theatre Festival. She was dramaturg for UMKC Theatre’s
Playing Doctor and
Henry V, and
production assistant for Missouri Repertory Theatre’s
Lilliom. She also
worked as an administrative intern for The Coterie theatre in
Kansas City. Katrina completed her M. A. at UMKC in 2005 with a
thesis analyzing Nicholas Rudall’s translation of Euripides’s
The Bacchae. Katrina is now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of
Kansas, where she has held a succession of prestigious GTA
appointments. She and Brian Bondari were married in 2006, bought
a house in Lawrence, and spent the summer 2006 in Katohi,
Greece, where they performed in an adaptation of
The Bacchae. In 2007
Kat directed Keely and Du
at KU. In 2008 Katrina and Brian returned to the Oiniades
Theatre Festival in Katohi, Greece, to perform in an adaption of
Agamemnon. Kat is
currently writing her dissertation while living in Tyler, TX
where her husband has a professorship at the University of Texas
at Tyler.
Christopher Brady
completed his M.A. degree in 1997 and moved to New York. Chris
has been working as a carpenter for off-Broadway theatre,
including the Tectonic Theatre’s
The Laramie Project.
Recently he was TD for an all-female
Macbeth.
Melissa Carle
spent fall semester 2000 as an intern in dramaturgy at the
Guthrie Theatre. She contributed to the Guthrie’s study guide
for Twelfth Night. Her
dramaturgical work on The
Invention of Love was praised in a Minneapolis newspaper
review. She received the New Theatre Guild’s Patricia McIlrath
Scholarship for 2000. Her dramaturgical work at UMKC has
included The Grapes of
Wrath, Hamlet, and MRT’s
Morning Star. She
wrote her thesis on the stage interpretation of Shakespeare’s
women in comedy and completed her M.A. in May 2002. She was
hired as dramaturg for Shakespeare Santa Cruz for the summer
2002 season, and now she is a freelance dramaturg in the Chicago
area.
David
Coley
completed his M.A. in Theatre in 2008 with an emphasis in
playwriting. He is now in his second year pursuing a Ph.D. in
theatre at Louisiana State University, where he holds an
assistantship teaching a section of Introduction to Theatre. He
earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre and English from
Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, but he originally
hails from Memphis, Tennessee. At UMKC he held a GTA for
teaching Foundations of Theatre and was dramaturg for
Present Laughter and The
Lieutenant of Inishmore (co-produced with the Unicorn). In
2007, he participated in the Great Plains Theatre Conference in
Omaha, where his short play,
Vexed to Nightmare,
was presented to artists from around the country, including
Edward Albee. This year, he presented a paper at the Mid-America
Theatre Conference in Chicago, Ill. He recently directed a new
work at LSU, and will be directing
Arsenic and Old Lace
this fall at the Baton Rouge Little Theatre.
Joey Condon
completed his thesis in 2004. It is the definitive
study of the history and relationship of Lamb’s Theatre and the
Church of the Nazarene. Joey, his wife Tammy, daughter
Anastasia, and sons Amadeus and Amaziah have recently resettled
in Kansas City, where Joey and Tammy now serve as co-pastors of
Grace Church of the Nazarene, 4300 Independence Avenue. Joey is
also adjunct professor and technical director at MidAmerica
Nazarene University in Olathe, which boasts the brand new Bell
cultural Events Center with the Mabee Performing Arts Hall and
the Southerland Black Box Theatre. The main stage will be
inaugurated the first weekend of November with the regional
premier of a Civil War perspective,
Dear Emma.
Scott Cox
studied at Southwest Missouri State University earning a B.A. in
Theatre and a minor in Creative Writing. He also took courses at
the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena CA. He has
studied Classic Greek and written plays, essays, short stories,
and poetry. During his studies at UMKC he served as dramaturg
for The Illusion, adapted by Tony Kushner and directed by Risa Brainin.
Summer 2004 saw him in several featured roles in
Julius Caesar at Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. In the
2004-05 season he was dramaturg for Barry Kyle's production of
Good and he put
together the departmental newsletter. In summer 2005, Scott
played Conrad in HASF’s
Much Ado About Nothing and returned to the festival as the
Constable in Henry V
in 2006.. He taught classes for the Coterie Theatre for several
years, has toured for two seasons with its literary outreach
tour for young children, and will performed in the 2005
mainstage production of Stuart Little. Scott played the role Frank in
The Rocky Horror Show "too many times" in his twenties (at the Late
Night Theatre, with Eubank Productions and at Liberty Hall). In
2008-09 he taught theatre history, playwriting and other courses
at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. While
there he also began a weekly playwright's workshop. In the
summer of 2009 he returned to acting in the role of Pozzo with
Relevance Productions' Waiting for Godot at the M.E.T. He is currently performing his
one-man show, "Living Shakespeare" (an evening of Education,
Entertainment and Enlightenment through the language and
humanity of the Bard) at wineries and other quirky venues
throughout the region. It has met with enthusiastic response.
Scott is now a PhD candidate at the University of Kansas, where
he is a research fellow and will serve as a teaching fellow in
2010-11 and 2011-12. His newest play script,
Mum Bett, will receive a reading in September 2009 with the Missouri
Playwrights Workshop. In personal news, Scott was married July
11, 2009. Scott and Amber Cox make their home, happily, in the
thriving artistic community of Kansas City.
Thom Davis
earned his B.A. in Dramatic Arts at the University of
Nebraska-Omaha, and completed his M.A. in May 2004 with a thesis
on Garland Wright’s Kafka play at the Guthrie. Thom was
dramaturg or assistant director on many productions at UMKC,
MRT, and the Unicorn.
His first
publication was a book review of
Staging Coyote’s Dream
in the Spring 2007 edition of the
Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance, and his latest conference
paper presentation, “Picking the Padlock:
Defying Censorship and Crafting a Queer Aesthetic at the
Caffe Cino,” was in March 2008 at the Mid-America Theatre
Conference in Kansas City.
During 2008-2009 Thom had the extreme pleasure of
directing four plays and serving as the Production Manager for
Inner Voices Social Issues Theatre at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign. Thom has completed all of his course work
for his PhD in Theatre, and in 2009-2010 he will finish writing
his dissertation while teaching for the American Indian Studies
program.
Dan DeMott
continues to write plays and travel frequently to Europe. Among
the productions he has directed locally are Tennessee Williams’s
Small Craft Warnings
at the Westport Coffeehouse in September 2001;
The Clouds, Gorilla
Theatre’s 2002 summer solstice sunrise production of a Greek
play in Volker Park; the Equity Project Code
Down by the Riverside
by Cate Browder in April 2003. Dan studied at Northwestern
University with Alvina Krause and studied in New York under Lee
Strasberg and Paul F. Richards of Actors Studio and Broadway
voice coach David Craig. In New York he appeared in
One Way Pendulum at
the Phoenix Theatre and
The Premise at NYC Improvisational Co (artistic home of
George Segal, Buck Henry, Joan Darling, and Dan’s acting partner
Gene Hackman). Dan also acted at LaMama Theatre Company, AMAS
Theatre Company, and directed and produced for Edward Gottlieb
Associates. As a playwright also, Dan has had New York City
audiences for his work: in 2000-2001 The Theatre Studio
presented A Good Friend twice and A
Glass of Water three times; the latter was also done once at
the Red Room. He had two New York productions in April 2003:
A Glass of Water at The Vital Theatre Company and
Aren’t We All at the
Red Room Theatre Studio, Inc. His musical
Pulling It Off was
produced Just Off Broadway, as was his play
Try This, which had a New York production tat the Theatre Studio in
February 2007.
Rodney Donahue
earned his B.F.A. in Theatre at Culver-Stockton College in
Canton, Missouri, where he acted in and designed for many
productions. He married Jessica Schriner in July 2006. He held a
Graduate Teaching Assistantship for advising in 2005-06, worked
in the Bloch School of Business Administration in 2006-07, and
completed his play thesis. He is currently working on his Ph.D.
at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
Anna Wheeler Gentry
lives in Phoenix and wants everyone to know that she had a
wonderful time visiting with Felicia (lots of food was consumed)
in August 2008 at the ATHE conference in Denver. Anna
earned her MA in 1999 after completing her thesis on American
lyricist E.Y. "Yip" Harburg. In March 2009 she attended
NY’s City Center Encores! historic revival of
Finian’s Rainbow (book and lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, music by Burton
Lane) as a guest of the Harburg family. Then in May 2009,
she was stage director for
A Salute do Rodgers & Hammerstein with the Phoenix Symphony
and Phoenix Symphony Chorus. Her article "20th-Century Women
Choreographers: Refining and Redefining the Showgirl Image" is
in Women in 20th-Century
American Musical Theatre (McFarland, 2008), and she is
actively working on compiling a musical theatre scene study
book. At Arizona State University, Anna teaches courses in
musical theatre, film musical history, popular music, and as the
Director of ASU’s Desert Gold Chorale she features performance literature written by
the great songwriters of American musical theatre (1920-1960).
Jessica Goldring
transferred here from the University of Oregon to get a double
degree in Theatre and Conservatory of Music. At UMKC, she sang
in the Conservatory’s production of
The Crucible, and
served as dramaturg for
Angel Street and the Molière plays. She had a Women’s
Council grant to conduct research in European archives for her
thesis on German cabaret of the 1930s and the
Faust legend as it
impacted Mnouchkine’s production of
Mephisto. She followed
her MA degree with a year of study in Europe on a Fulbright
grant. On 15 August
2009, she and Marianna
Vogt presented
Exilekabarett at an off-off-Broadway theatre in New York
City.
Anne Einig Johnston
wrote her 2000 M.A. thesis on MRT's beloved founding artistic
director, Dr. Patricia McIlrath (1924-1999). After completing
her M.A., she won a prestigious position as Education and
Community Programs Manager at Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre,
where she worked until she got the opportunity to move back to
Kansas City in 2004. She ran the Continuing Education Department
at the Kansas City Art Institute for one year before being hired
as the Director of Educational Programs at Starlight Theatre in
2005. She and her husband Jeff Johnston live in Kansas City.
Anne Einig
Johnston
wrote her 2000 M.A. thesis on MRT's beloved founding artistic
director, Dr. Patricia McIlrath (1924-1999). After completing
her M.A., she won a prestigious position as Education and
Community Programs Manager at Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre,
where she worked until she got the opportunity to move back to
Kansas City in 2004. She ran the Continuing Education Department
at the Kansas City Art Institute for one year before being hired
as the Director of Educational Programs at Starlight Theatre in
2005. Recently, Anne joined PREP-KC, an independent non-profit
organization created to help our urban school districts with
their reform initiatives, as the Arts & Communication Industry
Area Liaison. She works with professionals, performing and
visual artists and organizations who are willing to volunteer
their time with students and schools in work based and project
based learning experiences. She has also been accepted into the
2011 class of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce
Centurion Leadership Program. She and her husband Jeff Johnston
live in Liberty.
Sujin Kang
earned her B.A. at Konkuk University in Seoul, where she joined
the Kondae Theater. She has extensive experience as a radio
actress and has also dubbed many American movies for Korean
audiences. Her 2004 thesis focused on the concept of plasticity
and its application to the acting of Eleonora Duse. She
published a book review in Volume 3 of TEATR:
Russian Theatre Past and
Present. She married Saejoon Oh in Korea in 2006. Please see
the listing for Saejoon
Oh (below) for information about their joint book. Sujin has
been teaching theatre classes at KonKuk University. In 2007 her
translation into Korean of Felicia Londré’s play
Duse and D’Annunzio
was published as a book
(ISBN 978-89-87458-58-8).
Stephanie Kelman
received her BA in Spanish from The University of Kansas and her BA in
Secondary Education (emphasis in foreign language) from the
University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Stephanie finished her MA in Theatre History from UMKC in
2006. Her thesis was
Arthur Ellison:
Kansas City Actor.
During her studies at UMKC she was dramaturg and A.D. for
Taking Sides and
Picasso at the Lapin Agile.
She was also dramaturg for Blue/Orange at the
Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, MO.
Stephanie has continued acting having appeared on several
different stages in both Kansas City and Los Angeles and in
films and commercials.
She is a member of AFTRA.
From 2004-2006 she was a judge for the K.C. Film Jubilee
and she is a contributing writer for
KC Stage.
In 2005 she was hired by Johnson County Community College
in Overland Park, KS and continues there teaching Theatre
History, Communications and Spanish.
This summer, she traveled to Spain to study the Spanish
culture and language.
At the Centro de Lenguas Modernas, she received a
certification in both the Spanish and the Islamic cultures.
She is currently writing an article on the play Caídos
del Cielo by Paloma Pedrero.
Recently, Stephanie began her work on a PhD in
Theatre/Spanish. She
is also finishing the western trilogy
Tad for her father,
Ralph Ratliff.
Ry Kincaid
earned his B.A. in English at
Rockhurst University and has been very active in Kansas City
theatre since then. He has acted at the Unicorn and American
Heartland Theatres. He is the main facilitator for The Coterie’s
Reaching the Write Minds program. Kincaid has been commissioned
to write the script to the Kansas City Symphony’s 2009 family
Christmas concert. His produced plays include
Little Bastard (2004),
In This Corner (2006),
and The Rajah of Saint
Louis (2007). In 2002 he saw publication of his collection
of humor pieces, SexyCash
(Grooveball Publishing). Kincaid completed his M.A. in 2008 with
a young audiences’ musical,
Billy and the Two Clefs,
for which he wrote the book, music, and lyrics.
Kay Sebring-Roberts Kuhlmann
is director of the Center for Women’s Leadership at Cottey
College, 1000 W. Austin, Nevada, MO 64772, where she developed a
Woman Chautauqua Institute. The 16-23 June 2006 Woman Chautauqua
Institute was the first of its kind in the nation and was
supported by funding from Missouri Humanities Council and NEH.
It trained 10 woman chautauquans and 3 interns from 12 states.
Kay served as artistic director and instructor in the process of
workshopping historical characters like Jane Addams. Kay
continues creating history-based and site-specific work, a
15-year specialization that informed her 2004 M.A. thesis
“Stageworthy and True: A Collaborator’s Guidebook to Creating
Historical Theatre.” Her projects in 2005-06 include a revival
at the Gordon Parks Festival of “Call Out My Name,” her
two-actor play based on the slave narrative of William Wells
Brown; multiple productions using her script and costumes of
community-cast dinner theatres based on the Santa Fe Railway’s
Harvey Girls; producing and performing Mid-Century First Ladies
in Repertory (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy) in coordination with
a touring Smithsonian exhibit; and continuing development of a
play investigating the post-WWI Bonus Army March.
Ellen Loschke
earned her B.A. with a double major in Theatre and English at
Avila College. She has written two short plays, one of which won
the Stanley Banks Prize. She also contributed to the Heart of
America Shakespeare Festival study guide for the 2002 season.
She completed her M.A. in 2004 with a thesis play titled
KeyWhole.
Rebecca Simpson Martin graduated
in 1998 from Missouri State University with her BFA in Theatre.
Since then she spent 8 years working for local theatre
companies including, the Unicorn, Heart of America Shakespeare
Festival and The Kansas City Repertory Theatre. Currently, she
is Production Coordinator at the Kansas City Symphony and
associate producing some of Kansas City's favorite Symphony
concerts, Celebration at the Station and How the Symphony Saved
Christmas. While a MA student, Becky worked as dramaturg for Off
to the Country (2001) and completed her thesis, in May 2005,
on the late Kansas City actress-director-teacher Robin Humphrey.
Rachel Mastin is from Grove, Oklahoma. She
earned her BA in Theatre with a minor in Political Science at
Missouri Southern State University in Joplin. While attending
MSSU, she acted in 16 shows and directed two main stage
productions, Graceland and The Musical Comedy
Murders of 1940. At UMKC, Rachel was dramaturg for
The Importance of Being
Earnest, Tape, and
Cloud Nine. She held
GTAs during her two years of study, then took a job as
admissions counselor at her alma mater while writing her thesis
on “Contemporary Drama Ministry.” In spring 2008, she will teach
Theatre Appreciation at MSSU.
Patty McCarty
is copyeditor and poetry editor for the National Catholic
Reporter, a liberal newsweekly. Her thesis play at UMKC was
about Dorothy Day, co-founder in the 1930s of the Catholic
Worker movement. Patty makes toast--lots of it--as a volunteer
for Monday morning breakfasts at Holy Family House, Kansas
City's Catholic Worker house.
Debbi McMillan
earned her B.F.A. at Ohio University with a focus in directing.
She has directed 9 plays, including
Watermelon Boats by
Kansas City playwright Wendy MacLaughlin and
Sure Thing by David Ives. She has acted numerous roles, including
Antigone in Sophocles’s
Antigone, Cecily in
The Importance of Being Earnest, and Mary Warren in
The Crucible. Debbi
completed her M.A. degree at UMKC with a thesis analyzing
William Butler Yeats’s early plays dealing with Irish folklore
and mythology. Her thesis, titled “ORTHODOXY TO HETERODOXY :
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS’S SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION AS REFLECTED IN
THREE EARLY PLAYS” was completed during the spring of 2008.
While at UMKC, she received two Graduate Teaching
Assistantships. During her first year, she taught Foundations of
Theatre Arts with Ashley Swetnam and during her second year she
received the GTA in mentoring and advising theatre
undergraduates. She was dramaturg for
Good Night Children
Everywhere. She plans to continue her theatre studies in a
Ph.D. program.
Rebekah Presson Mosby
earned her MA in 1987. In Kansas City, she produced New Letters
on the Air and filed about 140 stories and documentaries for
NPR. She produced two critically-praised collections of poetry
on CDs for Rhino Records:
In Their Own Voices: A Century of Recorded Poetry (4-CD set,
1996) and Our Souls Have
Grown Deep Like the River: Black Poets Read Their Work (2-CD
set, 2000). The latter won the Audie Award. Rebekah co-edited
(with Elise Paschen) the 2001 bestseller
Poetry Speaks: Hear the
Voice of the Poet from Tennyson to Plath with 3 CDs
(Sourcebooks), which will be released in a revised edition in
fall 2007 Her latest collection, a 4-CD box set titled
Poetry on Record: . 98 Poets Read Their Work (2006) earned Rebekah a Grammy nomination
in the Best Historical Collection category. Rebekah taught a
course in radio writing at Colgate University. Rebekah lives in
Hamilton, New York, with her husband, the art historian Dewey F.
Mosby.
Anthony J. Nugent
divides his time between travels in Europe and work at the
Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. After seeing theatre and other
attractions in Paris and Prague and points between, Tony affirms
that all facts learned in UMKC theatre history courses check out
as correct. In the PBS-TV broadcast of the opera version of the
Kennedy Center’s The Cid, Tony was on stage (off-camera)
behind a horse. He was pleased to be a part of the production
team for the Kennedy Center’s mammoth Sondheim cycle. He
operated the automation computer for
Mame. He is currently
writing the definitive book on the craft of working on the
stage. His wife Joyce works for the National Captioning
Institute, writing audio description for the blind. They were
married on 2 June 2007 in Waterbuury CT.
Saejoon Oh
is from Seoul, where he acted and directed with several theatre
companies, including Theater Rothem, Theater Kongtongbunmo, and
Kondae Theater. He has translated Korean plays into English and
has translated some of Felicia Londré’s works into Korean. He
wrote his M.A. thesis on Albert Camus. At Louisiana State
University, he earned his Ph.D. in 2007 with a dissertation on
“The Implantation of Western Theatre in Korea: Hong Hae-Song
(1894-1957), Korea’s First Director.” Saejoon and
Sujin Kang published a book titled
Melodrama 2 (ISBN 89-87458-50-4 04680) in Seoul, Korea, in 2005. It
is an anthology of Western melodramas translated into Korean,
and it includes Metamora,
The Octoroon, Under the
Gaslight, and The
Count of Monte Cristo. Saejoon and Sujin were married at
Myeondong Cathedral in Seoul on 7 September 20066.
Sarah Oliver
is Costume Shop Manager for the UMKC graduate costume shop. She
comes to the Theatre MA program from a background in fine art
and art history at the Kansas City Art Institute. For the past
six years Mrs. Oliver has worked at the University of Missouri -
Kansas City in the theatre department and is the Professor of
Costume Technology for the graduate program. She has built
costumes for theatres coast to coast: for the
Los Angeles Opera to the New York City Opera.
She has also worked as a stitcher for almost every
theatre in the Kansas City regional area. Most recently she was
the costume designer for the Barstow School's production of
Metamorphoses.
Mrs. Oliver served as
dramaturg for the Actor's Theatre of Kansas City productions of
Translations and A Lesson From
Aloes.
Alessandra Paloschi
completed the MFA in acting at Pennsylvania State University. In
May-June 2000 she acted in
Oedipus Rex with the Teatro Stabile Torino on tour to the
ancient Greek theatre on Syracuse. She recently acted in her
second production of Hedda Gabler; her first was in Grant
hall theatre a few years ago.
Mari Pappas
works as administrative assistant for the National School Boards
Association. In 1995, she entered into a PhD program of study in
the University of Pittsburgh’s Theatre Department which she did
not complete. She published a book review in the 2001 issue of
Theatre History Studies. In recent years, she has been
enjoying travel to the UK and France, including a special
interest in exploring cathedral spaces and monastic ruins. Mari
played Anna Hauptmann in Hauptmann by John Logan at Port
City Playhouse in Alexandria, Virginia, and that production won
the 2006 Ruby Griffith Award for All Round Production
Excellence, an award sponsored by the British Embassy Players.
Never one to give up easily, she is presently enrolled as a
non-degree graduate student at George Mason University where she
hopes to eventually pursue a doctorate in Cultural Studies.
Andrew Pierce
earned his B. A. in Communication at Pittsburg State University,
where he directed
Ruthless! The Musical and was charter president for PSU’s
Alpha Psi Omega chapter. Andy also wrote for PSU’s newspaper and
yearbook, receiving regional and national awards from the
Associated Collegiate Press. Andy served as dramaturg for
The American Clock and
for Three Sisters. In
2006-07, he held a GTA appointment for advising and mentoring
undergraduates. Theatre Design & Technology published his article on the UMKC
charrettes as an approach to theatre training (also the subject
of his thesis). After completing his MA in Theatre at UMKC, he
began his Ph.D. studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia,
where he received a graduate assistantship. He continued his
work with Ricardo Kahn and Kathleen McGhee-Anderson on UMKC
Theatre’s world premiere of
Quindaro. On a
competitive panel at ATHE in Denverr (August 2008), he presented
a paper about his dramaturgical work on that production. He also
presented a paper at the 2008 Mid-America Theatre Conference.
William Douglas Powers
completed his Ph.D. in July 2001 in Theatre at the University of
Missouri-Columbia, where he directed an acclaimed production of
The Dybbuk and acted
in many productions. Doug is now Associate Professor and
department chair at Susquehanna University (133 Degenstein Hall,
Selinsgrove PA 17870; tel. 570-372-4522). He and Jimmy bought a
house in Northumberland PA 17857. Among the productions Doug has
directed at Susquehanna U are
Snoopy: The Musical, The
Little Foxes, Two by
Two, Waiting for Godot,
The Lark, The Seagull, The
Winter’s Tale, Enchanted April, and
I Remember Mama. Also
at SU, he acted in
Titanic, organized an interdisciplinary Jewish cultural
studies event at which Felicia Londré presented her slide
lecture, “Al Jolson: Jewish Jazz and Blackface,” and in 2004
created a major university event on “Religion in the Public
Square,” during which Doug hosted
Tony Kushner and conducted a public interview with him,
as well as directing Kushner’s adaptation of
The Dybbuk. In March
2003, Doug presented a paper on Lynn Riggs and the myth of
Oklahoma! at the Hofstra University conference on the Broadway
Musical. Doug’s one-act play
Sounding Brass was
published by Baker’s Plays. Doug’s first book,
An Eliadean Interpretation
of Frank G. Speck’s Account of the Cherokee Booger Dance was
published by The Edwin Mellen Press. He has published a
comparative study of Tennessee Williams and Tony Kushner in
South Atlantic Review,
an essay in the Tennessee
Williams Encyclopedia, entries in Greenwood’s
Encyclopedia of
Multi-Ethnic Literature, book reviews in
TEATR: Russian Theatre Past and Present, and other pieces. Two of
his students are following in his footsteps, with excellent
financial support for their Ph.D. studies at the University of
Missouri-Columbia. During spring break 2006, he
took 20 students to Italy and Greece. In 2007, they will
go to Ireland for ten days.
Roger Rowlett’s
web home page is
http://americasroof.com
Roger is president of a national hiking club and was climbing
the highest point on September 11, 2001.
Kathleen D. Shaw completed her
M.A. in 1999 with a thesis play about Madame C.J. Walker.
As writing instructor for 6 to 10-year-old girls, she
worked on Destination Creation 2000 Drama Camp as a Creative
Writing Instructor, sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman
Foundation, Kaw Valley Arts & Humanities, Inc., Kansas Arts
Commission, Chameleon Theatre Co., and the YWCA of KCKS.
Productions of her plays include: The Shoe Wizard Brings a Brand
New Dance, Staged reading for the
International Black Writers and Artists of LA, Nov. 2006.
Life Lines, Reading The Robey Theatre Co.,
Play Reading Series, 2005, Whoa Men, A Female Buffalo Soldier,
Two act historical drama about, Cathay Williams, a female
buffalo soldier.
Reading by The Robey Theatre Co., Play Reading Series, 2003,
Reading of Scene One by The Robey Theatre Company’s Discovered
Voices Fundraising Event.
Actors were Angela Bassett and CCH Pounder.
November 2002.
Staged Reading with University of Louisville, African
American Theatre Program’s, 4th Annual Juneteenth
Festival of New Works: A Cultural Explosion of Artistic
Emancipation, May 2000.
Slave Mommas, Staged reading, Association for Los
Angeles Playwrights, Play-reading Festival 2002 and a televised
reading on ‘Arts At Ya’, Cable TV program hosted by Stan Banks.
The Making of a Legend: Madam C. J. Walker,
Production at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, Los Angeles, CA,
May 2007 by The Robey Theater Company and The Against Type
Theater Company Presents “A Medley of One Act Plays”, Directed
by Bennett Guillory, 14 performances.
Production at The Muhammad Ali Center, February 2007,
Louisville, KY, Directed by Dr. Lundeana M. Thomas.
Production at University of Louisville’s Martin Luther
King, Jr. Commemoration Service, Monday, Jan. 15, 2007, Directed
by Dr. Lundeana M. Thomas with Guest Speaker Professor Glenda
Dickerson at The Playhouse.
Commissioned Staged Reading by the University of
Missouri – Kansas City Starr Symposium: Poverty, Privilege and
Prejudice. The piece
was produced and performed with professional actors, January
1999. Going
Back in Time Educational script about Alzheimer’s disease
directed toward educating the African American community about
this disease and support services.
Shaw wrote, directed and performed eight (8) readings
included in Missouri Alzheimer’s Grant Application 1999,1998,
1994. Production - 18th & Vine Heritage Festival
Stage, MC Players Theatrical Co.
The Lifetime of Emily Fisher, 1808-1898, Performed
dramatic reading for Midwest Afro American Genealogical
Coalition (MAGIC), 1997 and UMKC Graduate Program Student
Production. Moral Dilemma, Production with MC Players
Theatrical Co., Kansas City, KS, 1993.
Just Regular People, *A Cinematalk Production reading
directed by Walter Coppage and sponsored by the African American
Film Society of Missouri & The Writers Place, 1997.
Kathleen continues to participate in ongoing playwriting
workshops with the Robey Theatre Company, is a member of the
Alliance for Los Angeles Playwrights and the International Black
Writers and Artists of LA.
Shaw has also self-published three books of poetry,
Manifestations of Black Feminist Thought in Poetry and Drama,
2000, Continuum 1996, A Creative Light, 1993
and participates in poetry readings.
Recovering the Sky made the 'B' list for the 2009 National Black
Theatre Festival (NBTF) Readers' Theatre of New Works/Plays at
High Noon and Theatre Conversations at Midnight in
Winston-Salem, NC.
Margaret (Kate) Sinnett
completed her Ph.D. at UM-Columbia, where she studied on a
graduate fellowship. Her dissertation is titled “Rehearsal, A
Story Map: A Critical Analysis of First-Person Narratives about
Theatrical Rehearsals” (2003). In 2000, she had a one-act play
presented at the regional ACTF, presented a conflict resolution
workshop at MATC (which she has subsequently been invited to do
commercially), and directed a showcase script at ATHE. In 2001,
her full-length play I
Dream of Flying, was directed by Dr. David Crespy on the
UM-C mainstage. Kate is the UM-C campus guru for Augusto Boal
workshops, which can be booked off-campus; in fact, she
co-conducted workshops at UMKC in November 2001. She served for
one year as Visiting Artist in Residence at Graceland University
in Lamoni, Iowa, where she was instrumental in revising the
theatre curriculum and publicizing the department. While at
Graceland, she directed Rebecca Gilman’s
Boy Gets Girl, which
was used to spark campus discussions about stalking. She also
directed a well-received production of Garcia Lorca’s
Dona Rosita.
Currently, Kate is an Assistant Professor at Saint Clous State
University in Minnesota. In fall 2005 she played a major role in
the mainstage production of
Rimers of Eldritch.
Then she directed The
Seagull. She is working on a commissioned full-length play
titled We Hold These
Truths, on the history of crime victims and the law. In fall
2006 she directed Waiting
for Godot.
Cynthia Stofiel
is UMKC Theatre's Student Affairs Representative (816-235-6683).
She has worked as a modern dancer and choreographer, a
registered nurse and licensed professional counselor, an
instructor of psychiatric nursing and creative writing, an
assistant editor, and owner of her own small business. While an
MA candidate, Cindy served as dramaturg for MFA productions and
as assistant to the director for Rep productions. She was
awarded a Women'sCouncil GAF assistance grant, The New Theatre
Guild Summer Grant and The New Theatre Guild Dr. Patricia
McIlrath Scholarship to support completion of her thesis play,
GODS AND GODDESS, based on an incident in the life of John
Steinbeck. Cindy completed her MA in spring 2006. Several of her
plays have received national academic and commercial theatre
awards.
Ashley Swetnam
earned her BFA in Theatre Arts
with a performance emphasis at Arkansas State University, where
she garnered many awards and honors. She wrote her honors thesis
on “American Women Playwrights of the 20th Century.” She has
experience in acting, stage management, properties, costume,
lightboard and sound operating. While
at UMKC, Ashley served as the dramaturg for
Boesman and Lena
(UMKC), Noises Off
(UMKC), Waiting for the
Parade (UTA), and
Desdemona, or a play about a handkerchief (Actors Theatre
Kansas City). She
returned to her roots for her Master’s thesis, “A Natural Stage:
The History of Theatre in Arkansas” which she hopes will one day
be expanded into book form. Ashley
is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree at the University of
Kansas, where she recently served as dramaturg for
Anna in the Tropics
and as assistant director/stage manager for
The Spitfire Grill.
This fall, Ashley will assistant direct and dramaturg
The Glass Menagerie
under the tutelage of Jack Wright.
Ashley will be a Graduate Teaching Assistant for
Introduction to Theatre and History of Theatre I.
Lori Lee Triplett
is Executive Director for IMAGO DEI: Friends of Christianity and
the Arts, and Director of the Salt and Light Drama Troupe, which
performs around the region. She is an active, produced
playwright with more than 70 scripts and 10 books published. Her
most recent book published in June 2007 is
Sermon Warm-ups II: 24
Lead-in Skits. Recent full-length plays of hers that have
been produced are The
Rescuer (2007), A Wise
Woman (2006) Sophia and the Grumpy Goldfish (2005) and
Revenge Is Mine (2005). Another of her plays,
Twain’s Eden (first produced in June 2003) was recorded by
Stillriver Productions for broadcast on public radio and CD
sales. At a reception in Topeka on March 4, 2003, Lori received
the Kansas Artist Fellowship for Playwriting from the Kansas
Arts Commission; this award is offered only every other year to
a professional artist on the basis of demonstrated artistic
excellence and sustained achievement. Additionally, she is
revising a comprehensive book
Christian Drama Through
the Ages, which has been used as a textbook at multiple
colleges. She has been an adjunct professor at Baker University,
where she directed The
Importance of Being Earnest,
Trojan Women, Pippin, Those Learned Ladies,
and Love’s Labour’s Lost.
Lori’s technical writing includes annual publications of The
Great Plains Symposium since 1995. She was president of Heart of
America Performing Arts (HAPA), a non-profit organization
seeking to strengthen society through the performing arts,
serving the five-county community around Baker University in
Baldwin City, Kansas.
Marianna Vogt
graduated from Brandeis Universitiy with a BA in Theatre. She
has performed and taught movement and mask-based theatre,
studied Caribbean folk dance and ritual at the Edna Manley
School in Kingston, Jamaica, and studied with Shakespeare and
Company in Lenox MA. She acts, directs, and has a particular
fondness for performing cabaret.
She was awarded a UMKC Womenâ•˙s Council grant to direct
Ibsen’s The Master Builder for the Urban Culture Project in downtown Kansas
City (August 2005), and another to assist in her with her thesis
research in Germany and Belgium.
In 2006/2007, while completing the research and writing
of her thesis on the renowned clown Lotte Goslar, Marianna
attended the Lassaad School in Brussels, Belgium.
In 2007 she directed and acted in
Medeamaterial at La
Esquina, and Urban Culture Project space.
Currently she lives in London, but will begin her Ph.D.
studies next fall.
David White
earned his B.A. from New College in Sarasota, Florida. He has
taught creative writing at Joplin High School. In Kansas City he
acted with Gorilla Theatre and in a River Market production of
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. He completed his M.A. with a thesis
play titled Desertdreams
and was awarded full tuition remission and a teaching
assistantship for his doctoral work at UM-Columbia. He completed
his Ph.D. there in 2004, having seen several of his plays
produced. His first professional production of one of his plays
was Ain’t Nothin’ Quick
‘n’ Easy at Greenbriar Valley Theatre in West Virginia in
February 2004. That play also won second place in the Mark Twain
Comic Playwriting Awards. Upon completion of his doctoral work
he was quickly hired to a year-round position as script
coordinator at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center in Waterford
CT. Within a few months he was promoted to Literary Manager for
the O’Neill Theatre Center as well as the Associate to the
National Theatre Institute. His play
Trash was produced
this August at the Access Theater, 380 Broadway, as part of the
New York International Fringe Festival, with a cast and crew
including UMKC alums Jonathan Escobio, Will Manning, Rebecca
Eastman, and Katie Gilchrist. One of the plays developed at
WordBridge received the 2008 David Mark Cohen Award at ATHE.
Rosemarie Woods
completed her MA in 2003 and
worked as an educator at Science City for 4 years while
teaching Movement & Voice at Baker University in Baldwin City,
KS.
She served as Wardrobe
Mistress for Heart of America Shakespeare Festival's
Romeo and Juliet.
Rosemarie continues her work at Kansas City Rep as Wig Mistress
and Dresser, having been associated with the company since 1991.
She has also worked wardrobe and wigs for Starlight Theater,
The New Theater Restaurant and American Heartland Theater.
Rosemarie's one act play,
Heat of the Moment, is scheduled for production on August 8
& 9 in New York. This play focuses on a Japanese-American family
on the morning of December 7, 1941.
Wen-Chi Yu
earned her B.A. in History at National Chengchi University,
Taiwan. In the drama club there, she participated in acting,
stage management, directing, and lighting design. At UMKC, she
served as dramaturg for
Macbeth and assistant director to Risa Brainin for
The Illusion. Wen-chi
completed her M.A. at UMKC in 2004 with a thesis on “Mei Lan
Fang and His Audience, including a Consideration of his
Cooperation with Qi Rushan.” She remains interested in cultural
bridges between Chinese and western theatre. Wen-chi now teaches
Play Analysis & Appreciation at Taipei National University of
the Arts, where she has 40 students. She also does storytelling
for children.
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