Teaching

My primary PEDAGOGICAL aim is to empower students to boldly question the world around them through the cultivation of their own creativity and critical perspectives.

I work to develop students’ understanding of the relationship between culture, history, and performance, and use assignments and activities that allow students to practice making this knowledge themselves through art and scholarship. such work is incomplete without attending to the diverse range of global histories and perspectives that inform our contemporary moment.

Similarly, in the acting studio and rehearsal hall I build common methodologies for collaboration, nurturing students’ agency to make and own their creative choices. Emphasizing craft and empathy, I ground such courses in best practices from the cutting-edge field of intimacy coordination to help model and implement more equitable and inclusive approaches to creating theatre.

Sample Courses

I love learning — and one of the joys of being a teacher is being a part of a wider community of educators, all looking for tips, exercises, assignments, and other tools to make our classes the best they can be. I am the teacher I am thanks to the great teachers I learned from, and who passed on to me their pedagogical techniques. In that spirit, I offer some sample teaching materials below. Just like the courses we teach and the strategies we deploy, everything here is a work in progress — but I am happy to discuss anything here with you. Alternatively - do you have a suggestion? Let’s have a conversation! Feel free to contact me.

World Theatre History II: 1640—1914 — Spring 2019

World Theatre History 1640–1914 is the second in a three-course world theatre history sequence designed to explore the development of dramatic forms, theatre practices, and performance from the fifth century B.C.E. to today. We will discuss histories of theatre and performance (scripts, design, audiences, conventions, cultural functions, etc.) within social, artistic, economic, and political contexts, both local and global. The survey is split into five units that focus on key themes, questions, and narratives in world theatre history. Within each unit, we will analyze and compare representative case studies to better understand performance as a practice and as a site of history making. Throughout the semester, we will explore a variety of theatre and performance forms including seventeenth-century French neoclassical comedy, Japanese puppet theatre, Beijing opera, melodrama, blackface minstrelsy, Bengali dance theatre, and naturalism among others. We will also investigate world theatre history from a historiographical perspective. This means that we will examine our material not only for content, but also for how it conveys that content. In our exploration of how theatre history is crafted, we will develop critical historical skills and tools, including how to ask historical questions, assess primary sources, critique narratives, and clearly communicate our historiographical ideas and arguments. (Note: This syllabus has been slightly revised based on my experience teaching the course in 2019.)

 Contemporary Global Stages: Performing Empire(s) — Fall 2018

This course is an introduction to the analysis of global performance in written, aural, and live forms across multiple geographies. In Contemporary Global Stages: Performing Empire(s), we will explore how empires have been performed as well as how empires, themselves, perform. What do empire and imperialism mean in our contemporary, global age? How do empires manifest in and/or through performance? Throughout the course we will examine performances from around the world, including Ireland/Northern Ireland, Korea, Puerto Rico, Iraq, the Ivory Coast, and the Philippines among others. The kinds of performances we will analyze include theatre, film, performance art, video games, and food. We will also study political performances, such as military parades and their transmission via digital media, protests, and the abuses of state power. Using both historical and theoretical lenses, we will investigate the ways different communities respond to and critique empire and its legacies, and question the relationship between empire and the global through performance.

Enjoying Performances — Spring 2020

This course is an introduction to the critical field of performance studies.

We are always and everywhere performing. We produce plays and inhabit other places and times. We participate in religious rituals. We occupy public and virtual spaces to protest political injustice. We invest significant time, labor, and energy in managing our social identities. And when we work – if we work – we receive performance reviews. This course engages performance as a lens for exploring embodiment, representation, identity, and history. Drawing upon the breadth and depth of performance studies as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry over the past half-century, this course will introduce students to performance as both a subject and method of humanistic inquiry. We will also engage sustained inquiry in two areas: “performing identity” and “performing America.” How do various communities mobilize performance to various social, cultural, and political ends? What can performance teach us about sexuality, gender, race, and nationality? Through lectures, discussions, and performance analysis exercises we will explore what a performance studies perspective enables us to understand anew.

Introduction to Performance — Fall 2019

This course is designed to develop the students’ awareness of the actor’s process and to foster a general sense of theatre as an area of human endeavor. Students will be introduced to basic communication skills, including physical and vocal presence in front of an audience. The course will also develop an introductory level of acting craft through the use of regular warm-ups, theatre games, improvisation, and simple scene study. The class tasks students to create and present several different performances and culminates in the performance of a final scene. Scenes will be selected from a diverse range of playwrights and students will examine the political, cultural, and social context of each play as a part of their preparation. The course will also provide an introduction to basic theater terminology and foster the ability to respond to and reflect on theatrical performances.

Courses Taught

Clarion University of Pennsylvania

• Introduction to Theatre (Online, Asynchronous) — Fall 2021, Spring 2022

• Voice and Articulation — Fall 2021

• Acting I: Introduction to Acting — Spring 2022

• Acting II: Scene Study — Fall 2021

• Playing Shakespeare — Spring 2022

University of Pittsburgh Department of Theatre Arts

Instructor of Record:

• Enjoying Performances (Introduction to Performance Studies) — Spring 2020, Spring 2018

• Introduction to Performance — Fall 2019, Spring 2016, Fall 2015

• World Theatre History II: 1640—1914 — Spring 2019

• Contemporary Global Stages: Performing Empire(s) — Fall 2018

Teaching Assistant:

• Musical Theatre Performance — Fall 2019

• World Theatre History III: 1890—the present — Spring 2018

• Undergraduate Seminar: Embodying Difference on the English Renaissance Stage — Fall 2017

• Enjoying Performances — Fall 2016

• Theatre and Collaboration — Spring 2016, Fall 2015

University of Alabama English Department

Instructor of Record:

• English Composition II: Research Writing — Spring 2015

• English Composition I: Introduction to Rhetoric and Composition — Fall 2014

Teaching Assistant:

• English Literature II: 1800—1945 — Spring 2014

• American Literature I: Beginnings—1860 — Fall 2013