Theater

Kathleen F. Conlin

Holding a Ph.D. in theater from the University of Michigan, Professor Conlin has developed her career both in professional theatre and in leadership of the arts in higher education. For the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival, she spent twenty-two seasons as Associate Artistic Director, Casting Director and Stage Director developing productions that emphasized the collaborative process with composers and designers especially in her expansive productions of RICHARD III, THE TEMPEST, and PERICLES. An award-winning teacher, she has researched and developed physical and vocal approaches to complicated verbal texts. A significant aspect of her combined teaching and creative processes was the directing of Tarell McCraney’s BROTHERS SIZE at students’ requests which developed into the inaugural production of The Definition Theatre--a new multi-ethnic theater in Chicago. Her arts leadership has included nine years as Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana; President of the National Association of Schools of Theater; and President of The National Theatre Conference. Awards include being named Barnard Hewitt Professor of Theatre at Illinois, Alice Scott Tacquard Faculty Fellow at University of Texas at Austin, and elected to the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. She is an active member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers national union.

Ron Jenkins

Ronald Jenkins, a former Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellow, has facilitated theater workshops in prisons in Italy, Indonesia and the United States. Jenkins specializes in documentary theater focusing on themes of social transformation and human rights.He has directed and/or translated the play of the Italian Nobel Laureate Dario Fo, and the Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol for numerous theaters, including the Yale Repertory Theater, the American Repertory Theater at Harvard, and the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. His most recent book, Saraswati in Bali, is the third in a trilogy documenting sacred temple performances in Indonesia as catalysts for community activism. His articles have appeared in The Drama Review, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, UNESCO Theater Bulletin, The Jakarta Post, and The New York Times.  A former circus clown, Professor Jenkins holds a doctorate from Harvard and a master's degree in buffoonery from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College.

Marcela I. Oteíza

Visual Artist and Scenic Designer, Marcela I. Oteíza teaches studio courses in design and media for the performing arts. Prof. Oteíza’s artistic practice and scholarly research in scenography are centered on the trans-disciplinary nature of design for performance, existing simultaneously as both spatial and time-based phenomena across multiple artistic practices. Her current research focuses on contemporary street-performance objects and how they are designed, utilized and understood within their context. Prof. Oteíza is currently a fellow at the College of the Environment (COE), with the project, Street Performance Contemporary Objects: The Self and the Automaton, within the COE 2018-2019 theme: Ecocentrism: Valuing the Other. Prof. Oteíza teaches in the departments of Theater and Dance, as well as in the Integrated Design, Engineering, & Applied Science program (IDEAS).Some of Prof. Oteíza's design credits include scenic design for La Canción by Candido Tirado, directed by Edward Torres, NYC, 2016 (awarded ACE and ATI prize for best production) and scenic design for Shakespeare's Richard III, directed by David Jaffe, exhibited at World Stage Design (WSD – 2013) Cardiff, Wales (OISTAT). She specializes in collaborative and non-text-based work, such as The Last Days of the Old Wild Boy directed by Rinde Eckert, a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Arts fellow. A designed object from this production was shown at Object Exhibit at The Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, 2015. One of her recent projects is a video-documentary: Santiago (en) vivo, based on street performances in Santiago, Chile, which was recently screened at the Centro Cultural Palacio de la Moneda, as part of the selection of the Teatro Internacional Santiago a Mil, 2018. She continues to collaborate with the Judy Dworin Performance Project (JDPP), for which she has done several scenic and media designs. Her article “City as Site: Street Performance and Site Permeability during the Santiago a Mil Theater Festival, Chile, 2012-2015” was recently published in the Series Scenography Expanded: An Introduction to Contemporary Performance Design, edited by Joslin Mckinney and Scott Palmer, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. She holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a BFA in fine arts from the University of Chile.

https://www.oteizadesign.org/performance-design

Katherine Brewer Ball

Katherine Brewer Ball is a writer based in New York. She is an Assistant Professor of Theater and affiliated faculty in African American Studies.  She previously served as the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Wesleyan’s Center for the Humanities from 2013-2014. She is also faculty at the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance. Brewer Ball earned her PhD in Performance Studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2013. Her research and teaching interests include theater, visual culture, Black, Indigenous, and Latina/o aesthetics, feminist theory, queer studies, and psychoanalysis. Her current book project, The Only Way Out Is In: The Black, Brown & Queer Performance of Escape, traces contemporary literature, theater, and performance works by Glenn Ligon, Tony Kushner, Sharon Hayes, and Junot Díaz. Brewer Ball is currently conducting research on a second book project which focuses on contemporary Alaska Native performance and art. Brewer Ball is a member of the Sexual Politics Sexual Poetics queer theory collective and in 2015 she was named a finalist for the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Her writing has been published, or is forthcoming, in Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Artforum.com, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, Criticism, RECAPS, Little Joe, Dirty Looks, ASAP/Journal, Media-N: Journal of the New Media Caucus, and by ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives. In addition to teaching, Brewer Ball curates performance and art events, including the NYC performance salon, Adult Contemporary, and publishes non-fiction.

http://www.katiebrewerball.com/

Quiara Alegría Hudes

Quiara Alegría Hudes, a Pulitzer Prize recipient, is the Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Writing and Theater since fall of 2014. Hudes previously taught at Wesleyan as a visiting playwright in 2012. “What a thrill to bring all I’ve learned about process, storytelling, and structure to the next generation of young writers,” Hudes said. “There is a palpable curiosity among the Wesleyan student body, along with a willingness to do the hard work that marries creativity and craft. I’m honored and only slightly giddy with the possibilities.” Quiara Alegría Hudes is a playwright, strong wife and mother of two, Distinguished Professor at Wesleyan University, barrio feminist and native of West Philly, U.S.A. Hailed for her work’s exuberance, intellectual rigor, and rich imagination, her plays and musicals have been performed around the world. They include Water By the Spoonful, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; In the Heights, winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical and Pulitzer finalist; and Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, another Pulitzer finalist. Hudes is a playwright in residence at Signature Theater in New York, and Profile Theatre in Portland Oregon dedicated its 2017 season to producing her work. Hudes’s honors include the United States Artists Fontanals Fellowship, the Joyce Fellowship at the Goodman Theatre, the Aetna New Voices Fellowship at Hartford Stage, the Roe Green Award at the Cleveland Playhouse, and fellowships at Sundance Theater Institute and the O’Neill Theater Center.  Originally trained as a composer, Hudes writes at the intersection of music and drama. She has collaborated with renowned musicians including Nelson Gonzalez, Michel Camilo, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Erin McKeown, and The Cleveland Orchestra. Hudes recently founded Emancipated Stories. It seeks to put a personal face on mass incarceration by having inmates share one page of their life story with the world.

http://www.quiara.com

Rebecca Foster

Rebecca Foster holds an MFA in Technical Direction from the University of Virginia and has worked in the field across the United States. Following her graduate studies, Rebecca entered the professional theater world on the Las Vegas resident production of Kà by the internationally renowned Cirque du Soleil. Rebecca worked as an acrobatic rigger on the production for three years, which performed ten shows a week, and involved advanced human flying systems for simultaneous use by ten or more artists. She was then asked to be part of the rigging creation team for Cirque du Soleil’s $100M production, Iris, which was mounted at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. As part of a fifteen-person team that designed and implemented the production, Rebecca managed the budgets and inventory for all rigging equipment. She wrote and developed safety procedures and rescue plans for all acrobatic elements of the performance. As lead rigger once the show opened, Rebecca took on additional responsibility for rigging inspection and rigging crew supervision, for an overall cast of more than 70 artists. In 2013, Rebecca became Technical Director at Westridge School in California, a competitive pre-collegiate school with more than 500 students in grades 4 through 12, which included producing four full-scale theater productions and dozens of other events and performances (orchestra, chorus, and dance). As Technical Director, Rebecca supported more than 60 faculty and staff members for all performance and event related needs, while providing valuable hands-on training with student crews and artists. Rebecca came to Wesleyan in fall 2014 to assume the position of ’92 Theater Facility Manager and took on the additional position of Technical Director for Theater/Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater for Technical Production in spring 2015.  She works closely with the Second Stage student group, serving as their advisor.

Calvin Anderson

Calvin Anderson is a Brooklyn based lighting and projection designer as well as an educator. He has designed and toured with dance, theater, opera, fashion, and live music. At Wesleyan, Calvin serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor and teaches courses in lighting and projection design for the performing arts. He has lectured internationally on lighting at numerous academic institutions, including Skidmore College, Point Park University, and Asunción School of Cinema, in Asunción, Paraguay.  Recent design credits include: a three-person cast of Hamlet directed by Neal Utterback, that opened at Juniata College and toured to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2015-16); Sweet Charity directed by Michael Rupert (2016); Strings & Serpents, a live music production directed and arranged by Andy Milne (2014-2017); and Flipzoids directed by Flordelino Lagundino in Juneau, AK (2012).  Select choreographers Calvin has worked with include: Jim Cooney, Mark Burrell, Keisha Lalama, Garfield Lemonius, Abdur-Rahim Jackson, Jonathan Hollander, and Fadi Khoury. Calvin is also the resident designer and production manager for FJK Dance, founded by Fadi Khoury. From 2012-2014, Calvin served as the Lighting and Technical Director for Ailey II, the junior company to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Select designs with Wesleyan University include The Pillowman directed by Eddie Torres; Summertimedirected by Kim Weild; and a collaborative project of Wes-Out-Loud, directed by Marcela Oteíza.  Calvin holds an MFA for lighting and projection design from the University of Connecticut. He graduated from Point Park University with a BFA in Technical Theater (cum laude). Calvin is a proud member of United Scenic Artists Local 829, and Wingspace Design Collective.

www.coandersondesign.com

Edward Torres

Edward Torres co-founded Teatro Vista (Chicago) with Henry Godinez in 1990 and served as the company’s Artistic Director until 2013. Recent theater credits include the California premiere of Water by the Spoonful and the World Premiere of The Happiest Song Plays Last, both by Pulitzer Prize Winner Quiara Alegría Hudes, as well as MacBeth for The Public Theater’s Mobile Shakespeare Unit, and a workshop of Like They Magical for Playwrights Realm in New York City. Torres directed the World Premiere of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity at Victory Gardens, which was named Best Play of 2009 by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and Time Out Chicago; was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and earned Joseph Jefferson Awards for Best Production and Best Director. He also directed subsequent productions at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles and at Second Stage Theater in New York (Lortel Award for Outstanding Play and Obie Award for Best New American Play) Torres received a 2010 3Arts Artist Award and was a guest director at the 2011 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference. Torres is also a visiting director at The Public Theater/New York University’s RELOADED program led by Oskar Eustis and Suzanne Lori Parks. He directed Mosque Alert by Jamil Khoury for Silk Road Rising in Chicago last Winter and worked on the World Premiere of a musical titled La canción by Cándido Tirado with music and lyrics by Grammy Award Winner Vico C for Repertorio Español in New York City. Torres directed Wesleayn's fall 2015 production of Marisol by José Rivera and taught directing courses in 2016-217. In 2017-2018, he will continue teaching directing and will direct the fall production of The Pillowman by Martin McDonough. Torres holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Roosevelt University and a Masters of Fine Arts from Columbia College in Chicago.

Summer L. Jack

Summer Lee Jack is a Brooklyn based costume designer. Recent design credits include: Tosca at the Madison Theater at Molloy College, Into the Woods at Charlottesville Opera, Morning Star and Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt at On Site Opera, Angel’s Bone at Oberlin Conservatory, La Boheme, The Wedding, the Beatrice and Benedict, Roméo et Juliette, The Classical Style, The Cows of Apollo, Così fan tutte, Carmen, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Eugene Onegin at Aspen Opera Center with the Aspen Music Festival and School. Otello with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, and BYSO’s Cenerentola at Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Cunning Little Vixen, Die Zauberflöte, Das Land des Lächelns, Le Roi l’a Dit, La Doriclea and A Little Night Music at Manhattan School of Music. Die Verschworenen/Die Winterreise at Hofstra Opera Theater, Don Pasquale with Venture Opera, Lucia di Lammermoor and Seven Deadly Sins with Heartbeat Opera. Summer is a proud to be a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829 and Wingspace Theatrical Design. Her undergraduate degree is in Scenography from Arizona State University, and she has an MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama. She has guest lectured in Costume History at Washington College and Fordham University and taught at Lafayette College in Easton, PA.

www.summerleejack.com

Robert Baumgartner, Jr.

Rob Baumgartner, Jr. is a New York based composer/lyricist and musical director. His original musicals include: The Jungle (Johnny Mercer Writers Colony), Adam Lives (Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals, Johnny Mercer Writers Colony, Baldwin Wallace First Takes, New York Theatre Barn, NAMT, Cap21),  Date of a Lifetime (NYMF, New Jersey Rep), Alone World (Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, West Village Musical Theatre Festival - winner of Best Score), What the Moon Saw (Cap21), Under Construction (NYU), The Hole (St. Clements ’09), Radiant Ruby (Vital Theatre  Company ’05) and Lullabies. Rob has served as an assistant to composers Galt MacDermot, Debra Barsha,  and Rob Reale. He was lucky enough to work beside Mr. MacDermot on his 2008 Broadway revival of Hair. He is musical director and orchestrator for the upcoming revival of Inner City. Rob is a graduate of the Musical Theatre Writing MFA program at Tisch School of the Arts. In addition to Wesleyan, Rob is a proud faculty member at Cap21/Molloy College, Harlem School for the Arts, and New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts.