This week, the Theatre and Media Arts Department will host two outside reviewers for our National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST) self-study. Wade Hollingshaus has headed up the report preparation, with help from each of our area heads and Rodger Sorensen, who generously met with Wade over the summer to help him figure out all the pieces the report needed to cover. The report has been sent off to the reviewers and to the NAST offices. The schedule is available at the front desk in the office. In the meantime, here is a brief introduction to the two outside reviewers who will be visiting the department on November 6 – 9, 2018.
Anne D’Zmura has served as resident director at the nationally acclaimed Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis where she directed Peer Gynt, Bert’s Folly, Billy and Dago, and Poster of the Cosmos; artistic associate for the NYC-based The Acting Company where she directed the national tours of Macbeth and The Tempest; artistic associate for the Playwright’s Center where she spearheaded the Stage-Time New Play Series and co-artistic director for Yale Cabaret. Some additional directing credits include Tony Award winning South Coast Repertory World Premiere of Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson. She was assistant director for Trevor Nunn on Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia on Broadway. Anne has directed many new play development workshops at theatres including South Coast Repertory, Playwright’s Center, BACA Downtown, Bristol Riverside Theatre, The Acting Company and Women’s Project Theatre. Anne currently serves as Head of Directing of Theatre Arts at California State University, Long Beach where she also served as Chair and Artistic Director and initiated EPIC (Educational Performance in Community) and the Affinity Series in collaboration with the faculty and staff. Anne’s work on ecology and theatre is in Readings in Performance and Ecology published by Palgrave Macmillan. Anne served as guest artist/scholar at Carnegie Mellon where she was invited to develop a course and project merging theatre and ecology for the Drama School and The Center for Arts and Society. Anne continues to develop international arts activism projects. Anne is a member of SDC, SAG-AFTRA. She received her BA from Hampshire College and her MFA in Directing from Yale School of Drama.
DeAnna Toten Beard, MFA, PhD is Professor of Theatre History and teaches a variety of theatre studies courses at the undergraduate and graduate level. Dr. Toten Beard joined the Baylor faculty in 2002. In 2012, she was named a Baylor Teaching Fellow. Dr. Toten Beard has also taught in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core and is currently co-director of the Baylor in Oxford study abroad program. Dr. Toten Beard is an active historian with research interests in early twentieth century U.S. theatre and drama. Her specializations include American expressionism, modernist theatre design, and depictions of World War I on the American stage. Among her publications are “The Little Theatre Movement” in Blackwell’s Companion to American Literature (2017); “Inspiration and Atmosphere in Getting Together A War Play: Stage Authenticity and the WWI Soldier on the Broadway Stage” in Theatre Annual (2015); “Performance, Preparedness, and Playing with Fire: Major General O’Ryan and U.S. Military Theatricality in the World War I Era” in Public Theatre and Theatre Publics (2012); “Artisan to Artist: The Impact of Gallery Exhibitions of New Stagecraft in the U.S., 1914-1919” in New England Theatre Journal (2007); and “American Experimentalism, American Expressionism, and Early O’Neill” in A Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama (2005). She is the author of the monograph, Sheldon Cheney’s Theatre Arts Magazine: Promoting a Modern American Theatre, 1916-1921 (2009). Dr. Toten Beard is also the editor of The Texas Theatre Journal, published annually by the Texas Educational Theatre Association. Dr. Toten Beard devotes professional service to the work of the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST) as a visiting evaluator of programs around the country. From 2012-2017, she served as Commissioner for NAST and 2018 she began a term as Chair of the Commission on Accreditation. DeAnna Toten Beard earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre History, Literature, and Criticism from Indiana University, a Master of Fine Arts in Dramaturgy from Stony Brook University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and English Literature from the University of Mary Washington.
Kyle Stapley was able to attend the second annual LA TV and Film Connection Fall Social held at the LDS Institute Building at UCLA this past weekend. He felt the social was very successful, organized by some of our alums, Caitlyn Stratton-Walton, Julia Glausi, and Jordan Peterson. About 175 people attended, including many BYU alums, LDS people in the industry, and media arts, theatre, and animation alums, and other friends. The highlight of the event was the Alumnus of the year award, given to David Wardle, who graduated from BYU Law School in 2002. In addition to his law firm experience, Wardle has worked as in-house counsel, running the legal departments of independent film distributors First Look Studios and Millennium Entertainment. David was given the award for his work with the Whittaker Group, which has been working to provide opportunities for media arts graduates in the LA area. Also presenting at the social was Virginia Pearce, the director of the Utah Film Commission, and Kyle who made a presentation about internships. At the conference, it was announced that the Whitaker Group and LA Connection would merge under the Whitaker Society. This group will start scholarships for media arts students and encourage internships. Colton Griffiths from the BYU’s Career Center also presented a new service similar to LinkedIn for students and alumni to connect with each other and companies offering jobs/internships. Many companies represented at the conference would like to use this service. Kyle is excited about the possibilities of this annual event and would love to get more current media arts faculty and students to attend.
Dr. Kirsten Pullen was hosted by the Women Studies Conference for Bodies of Women that was held last week. As one of several speakers invited to present at the conference, Dr. Pullen titled her presentation, “Watching Women: The Body of the Performer, the Performing Body, and the Body of the Audience.” She specifically presented on the bodies of actresses during the 19-20th centuries, including Lena Horne and other greats. Kirsten holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Theatre Research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently the chair of the theatre department at the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana, the alma mater of Bridget Benton, Amy Peterson Jensen, and Rory Scanlon. She is a performance historian with particular emphasis on female performers and performance theory during the 20th and 21st centuries in the United States. She has published books through top notch publishers at Cambridge University Press and Rutgers University Press. Dr. Pullen is also an active member in the American Society for Theatre Research, serving as a member of its Executive Committee from 2011–2014. After her well-attended presentation, Kirsten also hosted several round table discussions for students around campus and took a tour of the theatre spaces in the Harris Fine Arts Center.
Benjamin Thevenin attended the “Taking Back the Web” conference hosted by the Centre for Critical Media Literacy at the Dublin Institute of Technology in Dublin, Ireland a few weeks ago. After presenting “Play & Pedagogy: Toward an Object-Oriented Media Literacy Education” to an international audience, he was able to travel around Ireland a bit with his wife Emily, who served her mission in the country 15 years ago. It was lovely. Here’s photographic evidence!
This weekend is your last chance to see BYU’s Production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap! Come enjoy this unique production directed by David Morgan who has expertly mixed the aspects of film noir and horror mystery theatre. For more information about showtimes and tickets, click here.
The Sound and the Fury 