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Please help us give a wild welcome to UMTAD's new Peers and Reps! Dance Peers: Aubrey Clark and Sophia Louwagie. BFA Peers: Wariboko Semenitari and Taylor Barnes. BA Tech Peer: Micah Kopecky. BA Performance Peer: Amber Frederick. BA Reps: Haley Dale, Raymond Niu, Killian Coffinet, Maggie Baukol, and KT Shearer. Line 3 Student Group: https://www.misiziibirising.com/

H. Adam Harris is an actor, director, teaching artist, and cultural equity consultant. He works at the intersection of theatre, education, social justice, and community engagement. Recent theatrical credits include puppeteering and voicing the title role of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax in the U.S premiere at the Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) and The Old Globe Theatre. He’s a frequent performer with CTC: The Hobbit, The Snowy Day, The Jungle Book and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. He has worked with the Guthrie Theater, Seattle Children’s Theater, New Conservatory Theatre Center, Park Square Theatre, Pillsbury House Theatre, and the Minnesota Orchestra. He is a proud Penumbra Theatre Company member, credits with Penumbra include The Owl Answers, The Dutchman, The Ballad of Emmett Till, and The Amen Corner. Along with serving on the Ten Thousand Things board, he is also a member of Artist Core, credits with the company include The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Dirt Sticks, The Seven, and Park & Lake. H. Adam is the Education Coordinator at the Playwrights’ Center; a resident teaching artist with the Guthrie Theater and CTC, and a freelance equity, diversity, and inclusion consultant for various organizations. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program. 

Lauren Keating is a director and creative producer of narrative film and series, new and classic theatrical work, and site-specific events. She is committed to work that centers marginalized voices and seeks to engage audiences in imaginative, personal explorations of complex and urgent questions. www.Lauren-Keating.com. Eric Sharp is a multidisciplinary theatre artist based in Minneapolis. He has appeared onstage nationally and internationally at the Guthrie Theater, Ten Thousand Things, The Jungle Theater, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, and the Toronto and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. He directs and teaches for COMPAS, Mu Explorations, and Penumbra Theatre Company. www.WorkSharp.org.China Brickey, a proud Chicago native, is an Actress, Vocalist, Musician, Dancer, Teaching Artist and Stage Combatant.  This summer she was named the City Pages’ “Best Actor in the Twin Cities 2020!”  Selected pre-pandemic Twin Cities credits include Park Square Theatre (Lizzie in Kate Hamill’s Pride and Prejudice, Juliet in Romeo & Juliet), Ordway Center for the Performing Arts (Smokey Joe’s Café), and Children’s Theater Company (Ms. Honey in Matilda the Musical). www.chinabrickey.com. 

Zeb Hults held the position of Assistant Technical Director for the University of Minnesota Theatre tech and design program for three years before stepping in as our Production Manager this year. He is also currently the Technical Director for Penumbra Theater in St. Paul, and has worked on several other productions for Ananya Dance Theatre, Interact Center for Visual and Performing Arts, Theatre Novi Most, and Circus Juventas. Zeb received his BA in interdisciplinary arts at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania and is a beloved figure in our department. 

Gabby is a Gary, Indiana native. She received her training at Perpich Center for the Arts and Education as well as TU dance center. She has performed and worked with choreographers such as Mathew Janczewski, Vanessa Voskuil, Orlando Hunter, and Marciano Silva Dos Santo on stages such as the O’Shaughnessy Theatre, the Southern Theater, and the Cowles Performing Arts Center. She is a core company member of STRONG movement led by Darrius Strong, and she also co-produced her first show at the LAB theater titled “Listen” in 2018. Gabby also teaches jazz here at the University of Minnesota. 

Harry Waters, Jr. created the role of Belize in the first production of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. He is most famous for his portrayal of Marvin Berry in the movie Back to the Future, which earned him a Gold Record for his rendition of “Earth Angel.” Television acting credits include Adventures in Wonderland, among other guest-starring roles. He worked as an actor on and off Broadway, and in reputable theaters such as Mark Taper Forum, Arizona Theater Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Theatre Works, American Conservatory Theater (ACT), and the San Jose Repertory Theatre. In the Twin Cities, he has appeared at The Guthrie, Penumbra Theater Company, Mixed Blood, Ten Thousand Things Theater, Pangea World Theatre, Park Square, Pillsbury House and Theatre, and Dark & Stormy Theatre. Mr. Waters has directed numerous productions in the Twin Cities and nationally, among them Waiting for Giovanni at New Conservatory Theatre Company in San Francisco and Bulrusher at Sonoma State University. At Macalester College, Harry Waters, Jr. directed Runaways, Proof, Angels in America Part I: Millennium Approaches, The Colored Museum, Tartuffe, In the Blood, The Laramie Project, Cabaret, The Cradle Will Rock, and URINETOWN. Mr. Waters received his MFA in Directing from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and holds a Meisner Acting Technique Teaching Certification with Larry Silverberg.

Chelsea Masteller Warren is a multidisciplinary theatre artist with a focus on scenic and puppet design interested in script-based and devised processes. SCENIC DESIGN work at companies including: Steppenwolf Theatre, Jungle Theater, Victory Gardens Theatre, Studio Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Geva Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, WaterTower Theatre, and Steep Theatre. PUPPET DESIGN work at companies including: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Jungle Theater, Studio Theatre in D.C., Links Hall, and the Skokie Valley Symphony Orchestra. She is a founding member of Yellow House, a devised theatre company working in both site-specific and theatrical environments with the goal of placing design and performance in direct dialogue.  Chelsea received her MFA from Northwestern University and is an Assistant Professor of Scenic Design at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. 

Deb Pearson, the beloved BFA program administrator of UMTAD, joins us for a conversation on touring across the world with the Children's Theatre Company (and mistaking scotch for apple juice along the way), BFA callback weekend, and the experience of witnessing BFA students make their way through the four-year arc of the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theatre Actor Training Program. 

Amplify Art is a multi-disciplinary virtual art show premiering in May 2021. They are a group of nine students enrolled in Dance Production at the University of Minnesota who are spending this academic school year learning how to produce a show. Their mission is to amplify artistic and cultural voices rooted in the University arts community though research and/or performance based work. Today we have representatives Jacqui and Maddy here to talk about the team and the process of putting together a student-led production during a pandemic.

Michal Kobialka is an internationally recognized theatre historian and scholar. He has published over 100 articles, essays, and reviews as well as presented papers on medieval, eighteenth-century, and contemporary European Theatre. His current research includes the investigation of representational practices as well as defining the nature of theatre/performance historiography. Additionally, he is focused on examining the temporal and spatial flaws and imperfections in the academic design for the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, which haunt the Euro-American academy. He is widely known as UMTAD's reputable Theatre Historiography professor, but we promise you that this interview isn't just another lecture. 

Tree is a beloved stage manager in the twin cities area, having stage managed extensively for the Children’s Theatre Company, the Guthrie Theater, the Jungle Theater, the Illusion, and the Ordway. She discovered stage management while attending college at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, a state university with a small undergraduate theatre program and a resident LORT theater. Halfway through her senior year of college, she signed her first Equity contract as stage manager, and in 2014 she signed on as the Guthrie’s Production Stage Manager. At the "Big G" she’s worked on over two dozen productions, some of which including Floyd’s, A Christmas Carol (2018 and 2019 under the direction of Lauren Keating), An Enemy of the People, Blithe Spirit, King Lear, and Sense and Sensibility.

Annie Enneking is an actor, musician, songwriter, dancer, fight choreographer, teaching artist and director. Her work in these capacities has been seen on nearly every stage in the Twin Cities including the Guthrie, Park Square, Frank Theatre, Dark and Stormy Productions, Theatre Latte Da, Ten Thousand Things Theater, The Jungle, and The Children's Theatre. She is a full instructor with Dueling Arts International, and teaches the art of stage combat at the University of Minnesota in the BA and BFA Guthrie Training Program. A 2010 Playwright’s Center McKnight Theater Artist Fellow, Annie has also received funding for her theatrical music performance events through the Jerome Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She is the front woman and founder of the rock band Annie and the Bang Bang.

Queen Drea creates conceptual soundscapes. By applying a poetic and often metaphorical language to her lyrics and compositions, she tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way and likes to involve the audience in conversation as they accompany her on her musical journey. Her works demonstrate how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells a story about the effects of putting limits on one’s self in favor of fulfilling someone else’s expectations. Queen Drea seeks to amplify the astonishment of the spectator by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images that balance on the edge of recognition and alienation. She also serves as the Executive and Administrative Office Specialist in the Barker for our very own dance department. 

What are the limits of performance as a mode of conflict transformation and social change? Over 25 years Professor Kuftinec has been exploring this question through research, teaching and practice. Professor Kuftinec teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Twin Cities theater, performance and social change, early modern theater and performance, critical literacy, storytelling, leadership, and drama. Her research includes community-based theater, conflict transformation, arts-based pedagogy, and the work of story to counter individual and historical amnesia. She has published widely in these areas including her award-winning Staging America: Cornerstone and Community-Based Theater (SIU Press, 2003) and Theatre, Facilitation and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East (Palgrave, 2009). Sonja has worked as a conflict resolution facilitator with Seeds of Peace, an organization bringing together youth from the Middle East and Balkan regions. She has also worked as a director and dramaturg creating original theater and leading workshops with young people across ethno-religious boundaries in Bosnia, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, and Germany.

Aaron Todd Douglas is an acting, directing, writing, and teaching theatre-artist-phenomenon as the Director of the University of Minnesota BFA Actor Training Program. A Chicago stage veteran before moving to the Twin Cities, Aaron Todd has acted and directed at many of Chicago’s finest theatre companies including The Goodman, Victory Gardens, Eclipse Theatre, ETA Creative Arts, Chicago Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare, Raven Theatre, The Court and Steppenwolf. He is also a founding ensemble member, former Associate Artistic Director, and former Playwright in Residence of Congo Square Theatre Company. 

Ani is a second-year MFA student focusing on costume design, having graduated from Arizona State University in Phoenix in 2014 with a degree in theatre. They costume designed the BA's 2020 mainstage production "The Skriker" and  will be designing "Men on Boats" for the program this coming spring. Conversation highlights include the challenges and consequences of colorblind casting, magical relationships between actors and costume designers, and the joys (and horrors) of high school theatre.

Bruce Roach is an actor, director and educator whose work has taken him across the U.S. and abroad. He is an MFA graduate of the FSU/Asolo Conservatory. Favorite roles he has performed include Iago, Leontes and Richard III. His diverse directing credits range from Shakespeare and Gilbert and Sullivan to Tracy Letts and Suzan Lori-Parks. In 2016 he directed Mike Bartlett’s Earthquakes in London for the BFA program in the Dowling Studio at the Guthrie Theater. He has been teaching and directing in the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program since 2010. Other highlights of his directing projects for the BFA include A Lie of the Mind, In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, The Seagull, and Three Sisters.TOOT ACTING PROJECT: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d45aca72ba7f4c61-auditions 

Sonali is an ethnographer of stage, street, and digital performance, with a particular interest in youth culture in the Arab world. Her recently published book Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Egypt’s Avant-Gardes examines the cultural politics of identity in Egyptian underground theater, before and after 2011. Since 2011, She has launched a second project on young Arab women’s digital performances. Beginning with an article on Egyptian bloggers who used intimate digital spaces to talk about self and sexuality, as well as revolutionary politics, she studied the performances of a Saudi beauty vlogger and Egyptian hijab evangelist on Instagram. She is interested in how their roles evolve across platforms and study them as posthuman performances, built by algorithmic, technological, and bodily processes. She received her PhD from Columbia University in anthropology and is a professor of UMTAD's history/literature program.  

Emma is an aspiring director and producer based here in Minneapolis and is set to graduate from our BA Theatre Arts Performance Creation program this spring. She is the founder and director of Firefly Musical Productions, a student based musical theatre company here on campus, and spent last spring in New York City as an intern for Telsey+Company casting. 

HIJACK is the choreographic collaboration of Kristin Van Loon & Arwen Wilder. Van Loon & Wilder each grew up in Chicago, met at Colorado College, and established their collaboration in Minneapolis in 1993.  Specializing in the inappropriate, HIJACK is best known for “short-shorts”: pop song-length miniatures designed to deliver a sharp shock. Over the last 25 years they have created over 100 dances and performed in venues ranging from proscenium to barely-legal. The duo has taught and performed in Japan, Russia, Central America, Ottawa, Chicago, Colorado, New Orleans, Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Austin, and Maine. In Minneapolis, HIJACK enjoys long relationships with Bedlam Theatre (as regulars at Romps), Red Eye Collaborations (as part of their Critical Core), Zenon Dance School (Wednesday morning Contact Improv class since 2000), and at Bryant Lake Bowl.