Conferences & Publication

Blackfriars Conference
October 2017. Staunton, VA.
I served on a panel discussing gender in performance. My piece was about my work with Merlyn Q. Sell on her Sweet Are the Uses, which also performed at the conference.

How The World Wags 
Book published by Sweet Wag Shakespeare (Mary Baldwin College's 4th MFA Company)
Co-editor, with Jess Hamlet (lead editor), Patrick Harris, and Merlyn Sell
Contributed chapter: "Ultimate Literary Heresy": Adapting Henry VI for Performance

Blackfriars Conference 
October, 2015. Staunton, VA.
Participated in a colloquy on rhetoric in performance and in the classroom, moderated by American Shakespeare Center Academic Resource Manager Cass Morris
Directed the first public reading of One Woman Town, by Merlyn Q. Sell, presented as a late night performance.

Education

Master of Fine Arts (2016):
Mary Baldwin College, Shakespeare & Performance (concentration: directing)
Thesis: "Ultimate Literary Heresy": Adapting Henry VI for Performance

Abstract: The modern impulse to adapt the Henry VI plays for performance is frequently dated to John Barton and Peter Hall’s triumphant production of The Wars of the Roses in 1964, as each subsequent artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company has directed his own cycle of the Henry VI plays. This practice has crossed the pond, with prestigious Shakespeare companies such as the American Shakespeare Center, the Stratford Festival, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival putting their own stamp on adapting the works. However, to date the adaptive impulse to to Barton and Hall’s production, or even to John Crowne’s 1680 The Misery of Civil War is to assume, mistakenly, that there is an original text to adapt, while the three distinct versions of 2 and 3 Henry VI (Q1, Q3, Folio) indicate these plays were in a constant state of adaptation for their own present performance circumstances. Through an investigation of the performance history of this two-part play, concluding with a production of an original adaptation by Sweet Wag Shakespeare, “Revisionist History” will argue that textual adaptation is an inherent step of production when faced with not one, but three equally (un)reliable early modern source texts. Directors will gain a greater freedom of interpretation, and academic reviewers released from commenting on diversions from the original text, with the knowledge that the tradition of adaptation dates back not just to the 1960s, not to the 1680s, but indeed all the way back to the early 1590s.

Master of Letters (2015):
Mary Baldwin College, Shakespeare & Performance
**Ariel Award for Service and Leadership**
Thesis: "Prosperous Art": Rhetorical Direction of Measure for Measure

Abstract: Since John Barton's Playing Shakespeare (1984), theatre artists have recognized that when it comes to playing Shakespeare, there are two separate traditions at play: contemporary actors and Shakespeare’s text. Unfortunately, the dichotomy of “two traditions” has created an increasing divide between acting methods based in Stanislavski, and the textual “rules” of Shakespeare. Using a scene fromMeasure for Measure as a case study, “Prosperous Art” makes the case that directors can use a rhetorical analysis of Shakespeare’s plays to inform Method-based script preparation. Directorial questions of beats, tone, dramatic action, motivation, and even casting all may be answered in part by thorough analysis of the rhetoric of Shakespeare’s plays and characters.

Bachelor of Arts (2009)
Illinois Wesleyan University, Theatre Arts
(minor: English)

Internship (2010):
Olney Theatre Center Advanced Intern Training Program
Casting/Production Management