Graduating MFA candidate Patricia Miller directs The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare as thesis project. This will be a unique physical theatre production with original live and recorded music. Themes of grief, redemption, the healing potential of nature’s cycles and time are expressed in a story of a privileged family torn apart by a patriarch’s possessive rage. The Winter’s Tale runs February 13-15 and February 20-22, 2009 in Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center.

Raised and trained in the UK, Patricia Miller brings a diversity of experience to theatre directing, teaching and acting. Last season at UC Davis she directed the U.S. premiere of Nights at the Circus based on Angela Carter’s novel and adapted for stage by Emma Rice and Tom Morris. Other U.S. directing credits include The Magic Theatre, UC Riverside and San Francisco venues. U.K. directing credits include Mountview Theatre School; National Youth Theatre of Great Britain; New Playwrights Festival, London; Riverside Studios, London and the Edinburgh Festival. Bay Area acting credits include: Family Butchers (Peg) for the Magic Theatre, Magic Theatre festivals of Irish Women Writers and the Playwrights in Danger. Romeo and Juliet (Lady Capulet) and Dolly West’s Kitchen (Rima, understudy) for TheatreWorks; Beautiful Thing (Sandra) and Cloud Nine (Maud/Lin) for NCTC; Bold Girls (Marie) for Viaduct; Women of Lockerbie (Chorus) for BAPF.

Miller’s teaching and directing credits include UC Riverside, UC Davis, Berkeley City College, San Francisco City College, California Shakespeare Festival and Aurora Theatre Education. As Casting Director she has worked for Aurora Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, NCTC and the Playwrights Foundation and for such notable directors as Kent Nicolson, Joy Carlin, Tom Ross and Chris Smith.