COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE AND DANCE

SITEMAP

UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES

MFA STUDIES

MA STUDIES

DEGREES FOR TEACHERS

GRADUATE THEATRE HANDBOOK

DANCE AT USC

CONTACTING FACULTY & STAFF

FACULTY & STAFF BIOS

DEPARTMENT ADMINISTRATIVE PAGES

MAINSTAGE SEASON

CONTACTING FACULTY & STAFF

FACULTY & STAFF BIOS

THE CIRCLE: OUR SUPPORT GROUP

AFFILIATIONS WITH REGIONAL THEATRES

SUMMER DANCE CONSERVATORY

PUPPET REGIME: AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT THEATRE GROUP*

ABOUT OUR THEATRE FACILITIES AND RENTALS

*Not sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Dance

Faculty and Staff Bios

Acting/Directing
Design Faculty
Design and Production
Theory/Theatre History
Dance
Administration/Staff

Acting/Directing

Sarah Barker

Theatre Movement, Acting. Associate Head of the MFA Acting Program. Associate Professor. MFA, Southern Methodist University, 1974. Certified Alexander Technique, Certified Lozanov Instructor.

Sarah is a nationally recognized leader in movement training for actors and is an internationally known expert in the Alexander Technique. Her book, The Alexander Technique, has been distributed world wide and has been translated into French, Japanese, Portuguese, and German. It has been used as a standard text in many theatre training programs. Sarah Barker coaches and choreographs movement professionally for companies including Shakespeare and Company, St. Louis Repertory and Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival. She has been a member of the training and artistic staff of Shakespeare and Company (Lenox, MA) since 1986.
Nationally she currently serves as president of the Association of Theatre Movement Educators. She has also been chair of the Survival Task Force for the Association of Theatre in Higher Education Advocacy Committee and a board member of the University/Resident Theatre Association.

Sarah Barker has also acted professionally, principally at the Theatre Project Company, St. Louis, in roles including Kath in Entertaining Mr. Sloan, Ophelia in Hamlet, Carol Cutrere in Orpheus Descending and Honey in Lenny Bruce. Occasionally she performs for Theatre South Carolina, most recently playing Amanda in A Glass Menagerie.

Robyn Hunt

Acting. Professor. UC/San Diego.

A member of Actor’s Equity, Professor Hunt has acted professionally in the US, Canada, Europe and Japan. She worked for over a decade with Tadashi Suzuki, performed in Tokyo and Kanazawa in Opium, a joint Pacific Performance Project/Theatre Group Tao under the direction of Kenji Suzuki, studied and performed in Kyoto under the direction of Shogo Ohta, and between 1994 and 2000 performed frequently at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, under the direction of Jon Jory. Professor Hunt was co-founder and first artistic director of the San Diego Public Theatre and co-heads the Pacific Performance Project in Seattle. In 2001, Professor Hunt received the University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award.

Richard Jennings

Acting, Directing. Professor. MFA, California Institute of the Arts, 1979. Actors’ Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild.

A member of Actors' Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild, Richard is a professional film and stage actor who has been acting professionally since 1966. He was Director of Theatre for several years at Morningside College and is Head of the Acting Program at the University of South Carolina. He has been a guest master acting teacher at colleges and universities across the country.

Richard has acted in professional companies from the Pearl Theatre in New York to the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. He has acted and directed at the Clarence Brown Theatre in Tennessee playing such diverse roles as Mozart in Amadeus and Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Richard has appeared in national film and television productions as well.

Jim O’Connor

Directing, Acting. Professor. MFA, Pennsylvania State University, 1969. Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

Jim has directed at numerous regional theatres, such as Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, the Alley Theatre in Houston, Stage West in Massachusetts, the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, and the Wisdom Bridge and Northlight Theatres in Chicago. He has also directed for the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespearean Festival on numerous occasions as well as the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. He received the Cleveland Critics Circle Award and was nominated for Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award for Directing. He created and headed the MFA program at Purdue University where he also served as Chair and Artistic Director for ten years. He served two terms as the President of the University/Resident Theatre Association, and has been elected to the prestigious National Theatre Conference and he is head of the Stavis Playwriting selection panel.

Jim received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State University in 1999. He Chaired and served as the Artistic Director of Theatre South Carolina from 1997 until returning to the faculty full time in 2004. Jim has an intensive background in the visual arts and brings this as well as his focus on theatrical forms to bear on his teaching. Next he will direct Peg 'O My Heart for the Utah Shakespearean Festival.

Steven Pearson

Acting. Professor. Head of the MFA Acting Program. Carnegie-Mellon.

Professor Pearson has acted and directed professionally in the US, Japan, Canada and Europe. A graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University with degrees in acting and directing, and a 10-year student of Tadashi Suzuki, Professor Pearson was head of the Professional Act Training Program at the University of Washington from 1992 to 2003, and previously taught in and headed the acting program at the University of California, San Diego. He is an Artistic Director of the Pacific Performance Project, and recent professional work includes directing at On the Boards in Seattle, LaMaMa in New York, in Sibiu, Romania, in Chicago and Minneapolis; and acting in Seattle and Kyoto, Japan.

Robert Richmond

Directing. Visiting Professor.

Robert Richmond, originally from Hastings, England, studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. For Aquila Theatre he has directed over 30 productions including Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, The Invisible Man, Agamemmnon, Othello, The Man Who Would Be King, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Tempest, Wrath of Achilles, Much Ado About Nothing, Cyrano de Bergerac, Julius Caesar, The Iliad: Book One, and King Lear. He has also directed special concert engagements of Cherubini’s Medea, Tanyev’s Oresteia, and Theodorakis’ Electra at Carnegie Hall. In 2005, Aquila and Mr. Richmond’s production of Much Ado About Nothing played a command performance for a private reception at the White House in honor of Shakespeare’s birthday. Additionally, he has worked extensively as an actor in the UK and US including seasons with Aquila, The Royal Lyceum, Communicado, and Citizens’ Theatre Glasgow.

Erica Tobolski

Voice, Acting. Assistant Professor. MFA, Purdue University, 1989. Certified Lessac Teacher.

Erica Tobolski currently oversees the voice component of the actor training program at the University of South Carolina, teaching graduate and undergraduate voice and acting, and is the vocal coach for the program. She coached voice/dialects at the 2000 Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespearean Festival, Charlotte Repertory Theatre, Purdue University, Ball State University, the University of South Carolina and Trustus and Workshop Theatres in South Carolina. Her exercise, “The Portrait Project,” can be found in The Complete Voice and Speech Workout, and her article “Coaching the Television Journalist,” is included in the Voice and Speech Review: Film, Broadcast and eMedia Coaching.

In addition to presenting workshops and master classes in voice, speech and text, she maintains a private practice in voice consultation as well as performs on stage and in voice-overs. Ms. Tobolski is presently the Editor for the VASTA Newsletter and the South Carolina Editor for the online resource, International Dialects of English Archive.

Design Faculty

Nic Ularu

Design. Associate Professor. Graduate Director. Head of Design. Universitary degree (MFA equivalent), University of Bucharest, 1980.

Born in Bucharest, Romania, Professor Ularu has extensive design credits in America and Europe, including theatres in Sweden, Northern Ireland and Romania. Professor Ularu was the head of scenography at the National Theatre of Bucharest and served for four years as a board member of The European League of the Institutes of the Arts (ELIA), Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He has taught scene and /or costume design in Romania, Germany, Sweden, England, Italy, Denmark and Hong Kong. Prior to USC he taught at Smith College and he was a visiting professor at the Universities of Texas, Minnesota and Tennessee.

Professor Ularu received an OBIE award for outstanding achievement in Off-Broadway theater during 2002- 2003 season, for the set design of the Talking Band’s Painted Snake in a Painted Chair, presented at LaMaMa (NYC). Ularu’s designs for Star Messengers and Underbelly appeared in the USA entries at the Prague Quadrennial Exhibitions in 2003 and 1998. In 2005 Nic co-designed the exhibit and designed the poster of the World Stage Design Exhibition in Toronto, Canada.

During the summer of 2004 Nic was an artist in residence at Konstepidemin Gothenburg, Sweden and had a painting exhibition at the Sense Gallery in Stockholm.
Recent freelance work includes set design of several acclaimed productions at LaMaMa and at the Flea Theater (NYC) and costume and set design for The Nutcracker at the Ballet Academy of Gothenburg, Sweden. Currently professor Ularu is the co-designer and curator of the USA entry at the Prague Quadrennial Exhibition of 2007.

Walter T. J. Clissen

Assistant Professor, Sound Design. MFA, National institute for Theatre and Performing Arts, Brussels, Belgium.

Walter T. J. Clissen has been sound designer for the PCPA Theaterfest, Solvang, CA; production manager for the Belgian National Opera; and sound engineer on films and CD recordings in Europe and the US. Most recently he was assistant professor and sound designer for the School of Theatre Arts, College of Fine Arts Technology of the University of Arizona-Tucson.

Lisa Martin-Stuart

Costume Design. Associate Professor. Associate Department Chair. MFA, University of Texas at Austin, 1984. United Scenic Artists, Local 829.

As head of the Costume Design Program, Lisa has a strong background in design, historical research and costume technology. Lisa’s professional design credits include Film: Ruby in Paradise; winner of the 1993 Sundance Film Festival and starring Ashley Judd, Ulee’s Gold (1997) starring Peter Fonda, Coastlines (2002) starring Timothy Olyphant. Regional Theatre: American Folklore Theatre, Asolo State Theatre, Aquila Theatre Company of London, Charlotte Repertory Theatre, and Hippodrome State Theatre. Her continued collaboration with Marilyn Wall (Emmy Award-winning costume designer) and Marion Caffey (Three Mo’ Tenors) on Cookin’ at the Cookery has brought her design and technical expertise to the Geva Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, and Huntington Theatre Company. As resident wardrobe stylist for Mad Monkey, a nationally recognized media production company, she has collaborated on numerous national and regional award winning television commercials including University of South Carolina’s Bicentennial Campaign and more recently “Cheerleader” from 2004. During Lisa’s 13 years at USC she has designed over 30 productions for Theatre South Carolina.

Jim Hunter

Scene and Lighting Design. Associate Professor. Chair and Artistic Director. MFA, University of Virginia, 1991. United Scenic Artists, Local 829-Scenic and Lighting Design.

Jim’s scene and lighting designs have been seen at such theatres as: Theatre Virginia, Phoenix Theatre, Charlotte Rep (NC), Arkansas Rep, Playhouse on the Square (Memphis), Drury Lane Theatre (Chicago), Heritage Repertory Theatre (VA), Flat Rock Playhouse (NC), VeggieTales Live National Tour, as well as others. Jim toured with the modern dance company Wall Street Danceworks and recently designed the lighting for the World Stage Design Exposition in Toronto. Among his upcoming assignments is the scene design for Thoroughly Modern Millie at Phoenix Theatre. Jim recently served as a 2005 Leadership Institute mentor for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. As a theatrical consultant, recent clients include The Institute for Outdoor Drama and BB&T National Bank. His teaching specialties include the use of computing to support the design process, including three dimensional computer modeling, and computer rendering. He is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829, the national theatre design union. Please visit his online portfolio at www.jimhunterdesigns.com.

Design and Production

David Britt

Production Manager, Lab Theatre. Instructor. MFA, University of South Carolina

David Britt appeared on stage at Theatre South Carolina in Measure for Measure, A View from the Bridge, Bus Stop, Dancing at Lughnasa and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is from Raleigh, NC, where he appeared in more than 30 roles. He has trained at the New Actors Workshop in New York City and at the world renowned Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA. David also completed the Second City Comedy Improvisation Boot Camp.

Sam Gross

Assistant Technical Director. Instructor. MFA, Indiana University 2005.

Sam Gross is a graduate of Indiana University where he earned an MFA in Theatre Technology. He specializes in mechanized scenery, computer controlled systems, electronics, and rigging. He has designed and built motion control systems at IU for such productions as Sweeney Todd, Romeo and Juliet, Sweet Charity, Dracula, and Pal Joey. He also served as master carpenter for This Is Our Youth, Betty’s Summer Vacation, Proof, Bat Boy the Musical, and Master Harold and The Boys. Mr. Gross received his BA from the University of North Alabama where he also worked as a sound designer, lighting designer, sound engineer, and actor. In his position as Assistant Technical Director Sam supervises graduate and undergraduate students in the construction of scenery and props for USC Theatre and Dance productions. Sam is a member of USITT and the Amateur Radio Emergency Service.

Arpina Markarian

Costume Studio Supervisor. Staff. MA, Kent State University, 1981.

Before coming to the University of South Carolina, Arpina served on the design faculty at Kent State University and Kalamazoo College. Design credits at USC have included A Taste of Honey, The Birds, and Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Arpina has also kept active designing at theatres in the Columbia area. Recent design credits include The Old Settler (Trustus), Grease (Workshop), King John, Henry V and The Lion in Winter (South Carolina Shakespeare Company). Film assignments have included working as a costumer’s assistant on Separate but Equal and as a dye master on Chattahoochie and The Program.

Andy Mills

Technical Director. Instructor. MFA, University of South Carolina, 1996.

Andy has designed professionally at Shakespeare Theatre’s Young Company (Washington , DC,) Charlotte Repertory Theatre, Carolina Opera, and is the designer in residence for USC Opera. His most recent work was Edward Albee’s The Goat at Trustus Theatre. Andy currently teaches Scenic Design and Theatre Laboratory. He specializes in the area of properties, finding or building the most obscure of items. Andy is a Member of USITT.

Eric Morris

In his twenty-five years of professional theatre Eric has taught, painted, designed and implemented production management for trade shows, ballet, opera, regional theatre, Off-Broadway, Broadway, colleges, universities and professional training programs. He is a recipient of a TCG/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. His articles and stories have appeared in Painter’s Journal, Business Lexington, Sandhills Magazine, and others. In his spare time he writes books of fiction and makes music with his band The No Nos.

Valerie Pruett

Costume Design. Instructor. MFA, University of South Carolina.

Valerie is the instructor and designer for hair and makeup at Theatre South Carolina. She started out in professional theatre as a makeup and hair artist for such outdoor pageants as Tecumseh! and Unto These Hills. After paying her dues with the outdoor circuit Valerie went on to work and sub-contract with several regional theaters including Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, American Players’ Theatre, Utah Shakespearean Festival, Dallas Theatre Center, Hippodrome, New American Theatre, Heritage Repertory Theatre and most recently the American Folklore Theatre. Before returning to USC, Valerie was a guest instructor and artist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Professional Theatre Training Program and at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. She is a registered artist with the SC Film Commission and the makeup artist for the Addy Award-winning media company, Mad Monkey.

K. Dale White

Stage Management. Production Manager. Instructor. BFA, Webster University, 1981. American Guild of Variety Artists. Actors' Equity Association

K. Dale is a Professional Production Stage Manager whose credits include: The Berkshire Theatre Festival (Stockbridge, MA), Bay Street Theatre Festival (Sag Harbor, NY), Shakespeare & Company (Lenox, MA), Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public Theatre, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Alley Theatre (Houston, TX), and others.

Danielle Almeida Wilson

Assistant Technical Director. Staff. MFA, University of South Carolina.

Danielle Wilson's designs for Theatre South Carolina include King Lear, Antigone, and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, among others. Along with fellow students, she helped found Pineapple Productions which produced Moose Mating and Staged Fright. In addition to lighting USC dance showcases, Danielle has worked with the Steffi Nossen Dance Company, the Joffrey Ballet, and the Royal Ballet School. Danielle was the Assistant Technical Production Manager for the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center in Charlotte.

History/Theory

Victor Holtcamp

Theatre History/Theory. PhD, University of Washington, 2003.

Victor Holtcamp was a instructor most recently at the University of Washington. He has been an actor, dancer, director and/or dramaturg, for UofW; the Pacific Performance Project; Caberet Theatre, Penthouse Theatre and Eve Productions in Seattle.

Amy Lehman

Theatre History. Assistant Professor. PhD, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1996.

Prior to joining USC in 2005, Amy taught at Towson University, MD, and at the State University of New York at Albany. She has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses on topics in theatre history and dramatic literature, ranging from 17th century French theatre to 20th century women playwrights. She has researched and published in the area of 19th century theatre and actresses, and has a book about Victorian women performers and mesmerism forthcoming from McFarland & Co., publishers. She has presented scholarship at the American Society of Theatre Research and the International Federation of Theatre Research. Other areas of interest include acting and dramaturgy for plays including Cloud 9 and The Duchess of Malfi.

Dance

Susan E. Anderson

Ballet, Choreography, Historic Dance. Professor. MFA, University of California at Irvine, 1973.

Susan is Artistic Director of the South Carolina Summer Dance Conservatory and the University Dance Program. She is founder and Artistic Director of the USC Dance Company.

Susan trained with the San Francisco Ballet and danced professionally with the Los Angeles Dance Theatre and Ballet Celeste of San Francisco. She has taught master classes and workshops throughout the US and internationally. She is a dance history specialist in baroque dance and has choreographed twenty full-length ballets and more than fifty original works. Most recently, she taught and choreographed at the University of Buffalo and The Gus Giordiano Dance Company in Chicago and Dresden, Germany.

Miriam Barbosa

Dance. Assistant Professor. MFA, University of Fine Arts of SP/Brazil.

Miriam has been a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company, Dzul Dance, American Dance Theater, and she has danced with several choreographers. Since 1993, Miriam has performed and choreographed for many events, such as, Museo del Bario, American Indians Community House, Choreographers Project at Merce Cunningham, Women Dance Makers Project at Thelma Hills, Contemporary Dance Festival-Mexico, Cultural Center of Arts-SP/BR; Emergency Fund for Dancers, among others. She has been a faculty member at the Fashion Institute of Technology, SC Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Nevada Festival Ballet, Martha Graham School's Teen Program, and the Institute of Theater of Barcelona/Spain. Among her activities in the institutions mentioned above, were, jazz, modern and classical ballet, composition, directing and choreographing.

During her dance training, she was awarded a scholarship in 1992 as a technique demonstrator at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, and at the Marymount Manhattan College for Theater Arts. Ms. Barbosa has trained Russian Classical Ballet with Mr. and Ms. Dokoudovsky in NY, and Ballet Ana Pavlova in Brazil. Ms. Barbosa is also a Master Teacher in Gyrokinesis and the Gyrotonic Expansion System of Movement, having trained since 1995 with the Master Mr. Juliu Horvath, which has added tremendously to her knowledge in the art of movement and the mechanics of the human body.

Stacy Calvert

Dance. Instructor.

Stacy Calvert, former soloist with the New York City Ballet and a scholarship student at the School of American Ballet, was chosen by George Balanchine to be a company member by the age of 18. Some of her notable roles were in Western Symphony, Stars and Stripes Forever, and Who Cares. She received her early dance training from Ann Brodie, Artistic Director, Carolina and Columbia City Ballet in South Carolina. Her mother, part owner of the very successful Calvert Brodie Dance School, has also had a great influence in her dance training.

Kyra Strasberg

Dance. Instructor.

Kyra Strasberg was a ballerina with the Boston Ballet, rising to Principal status over a 15 year career. She has taught and staged works for Harvard University. She is a master teacher trainer for Pilates.