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. 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 - 18^th & 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.