Titles and contact information are displayed below. Click on a
section heading or use tabs at left to see all listings for that
section. Click on individual names to see complete biographies.
L. M. Bogad is an author, performance artist/activist,
educator, Director of the Center for Tactical Performance,
and co-founder of the Clown Army. He has performed across the
United States, Europe, and South America, from SF MOMA, the
Whitney Museum, Yerba Buena Arts Center, and the Mattress Factory
to occupied zones and a squatted military base in Barcelona.
Mindy Cooper has had the privilege of spending
the last 40 years working as a dancer, choreographer, director,
producer and teacher. From dance companies (Twyla Tharp Dance,
Eliot Feld Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Thingsezisee’m Dance
Theater) to Broadway/Off-Broadway
(Chicago, Titanic, Song and Dance, Beauty and the
Beast, Dracula The Musical, Being Seen, The Eternal Space,
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, Live!, 50 Shades – The
Musical Parody, Soul Doctor, Wrong Mountain), her passion
for new works has always steered her career.
History of Rhetoric and PerformancePh.D. Adviser, Theatre and Dance
Lynette Hunter, Professor of the History of Rhetoric and
Performance, has written and edited over 30 books and many essays
in a range of disciplines from the history of rhetoric and
literature, to philosophy and feminist theory, to post /
neo-colonial / decolonical studies (especially in Canada), to the
history of science and computing, to women’s history and gender
studies (from the early modern period), to performance studies,
and alternative embodiments.
M.F.A. Classical Theatre, The George Washington University at The Shakespeare TheatreB.S. Interdepartmental Studies, School of Speech, Northwestern University
Margaret Laurena Kemp has appeared on regional
and international stages including Arena Stage, Mark Taper Forum,
Yale Rep, South Coast Repertory, La Mama Theatre (Melbourne,
Australia), Theatre of Changes (Athens, Greece), Red Pear Theatre
(Antibes, France), and The Magnet Theatre (Cape Town, South
Africa).
Costume Design: Stage and ScreenM.F.A., Design, Yale School of Drama
Maggie Morgan is a costume designer for stage and screen. Her
recent work includes a Broadway musical, feature and short films,
and several productions at California theaters.
Ph.D. Duke University, 1999B.A. University of Cincinnati, Phi Beta KappaPerformance Studies
Jon D. Rossini is Associate Professor in the Department of
Theatre and Dance at UC Davis where he teaches courses in Theatre
and Dance History, Ethnicity/Race in Performance, Performance
Writing, Playwriting, and Theories of Performance.
Alexander Boyd graduated from the University of California
at Davis Graduate Program in Performance Studies in June 2014.
His dissertation, “The Sustainability of Traditional Knowledge
Systems: Embodied Learning through Practice, Teaching and
Application,” draws on 20 years of professional practice and
teaching in Daoist Qigong arts (Daojiao Lishi Quanfa)
that he has studied since 1985 with his main teachers Chee Soo
(who passed in 1994) and Desmond Murray.
Ms. Cavanaugh has choreographed for Oregon Shakespeare Festival
(for five seasons as choreographer and actor), Berkeley Repertory
Theatre, The New Victory Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre,
Cincinnati Playhouse, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Brisbane
Arts Festival, La Mama E.T.C., Aurora Theatre Company,
Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, San
Francisco Shakespeare Festival, TheatreWorks, Shakespeare at
Stinson, Mills College Rep, and Summerfest Dance and California
Shakespeare Theater (where she is an Associate Artist) for 17
seasons.
Stuart Carroll is the Artistic Director of the Sacramento-based
Capitol Ballet Company. He has presented The Nutcracker, Swan
Lake, Giselle, Paquita, La
Bayadère, and Don
Quixote to local audiences and the surrounding
communities with support and funding from the Sacramento
Metropolitan Arts Commission and the California Arts Council.
Michele Apriña Leavy is a professional actor and theatre
educator. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, she has
performed locally with such companies as the American
Conservatory Theater, Alameda Civic Ballet, Berkeley Repertory
Theatre, Center Repertory Company, California Conservatory
Theater, Livermore Shakespeare Festival, Marin Theatre Company,
and TheatreWorks, among others. In farther locales, she has
appeared with Theatre Key West (Florida), The Elephant Theatre
Company (Los Angeles), and Theatre167 (New York City).
M.F.A., Technical Design and Production, Yale School of Drama
Steven Schmidt is a Davis native and the Technical Director for
California Shakespeare Theatre. Over the past ten years he has
worked as the Associate Head of Production for Yale Repertory
Theatre, a freelance Technical Director for the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival, and the Technical Director for B Street
Theatre. He is a co-author of Structural Design for the
Stage (2nd edition). He was also a founding member of
Barnyard Theatre.
PhD student in Native American Studies, Designated Emphasis in Performance Studies (UC Davis)B.A. in Art Practice, minor in Dance & Performance Studies (UC Berkeley)
Katelyn Stiles is a filmmaker, visual artist and
dancer, specializing in dance film and performance documentation
for the past 10 years in Berlin and the Bay Area. Her film works
have been screened internationally in film festivals, and
she has danced professionally in different contexts. Her research
crosses Performance Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and
Indigenous Studies. She is Tlingit and a tribal member of the
Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.
All TAs and AIs teaching classes in the Department of Theatre &
Dance are listed here. Some are department MFA students (Dramatic
Arts), while others are Ph.D. students in Performance
Studies (an interdisciplinary Graduate Group). Visit
the Performance
Studies website for more information.
University of Central Florida, B.A. Theatre (Stage Management Specialization)
Joseph Fletcher has worked as a director, content creator, stage
manager, producer, and arts administrator for over fifteen years.
He has experience working in NYC, regionally, and
internationally, past companies include Cirque Du Sole’s La
Nouba, The Walnut Street Theatre, the National Tour
of Chicago the Musical, The Signature Theatre, Target
Margin, and Riverside Theatre. A graduate from the
University of Central Florida with a BFA in Theatre, Joseph has
trained with Sojourn Theatre and Double Edge Theatre.
University of California, Davis, B.A. in Dramatic Art and CommunicationSan Francisco State University, M.A., Drama
Janey Pintar is an actor, director, and educator of the theatre
arts with a background in movement including Suzuki. She received
Bachelor of Arts degrees from UC Davis and a Master of Arts
degree from San Francisco State University. Her interests include
the exploration of movement systems and multicultural theatre
practices. Janey worked as a theatre teaching artist for the
Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission through the Kennedy
Center’s Any Given Child Program, and for the Sacramento Theatre
Company.
B.F.A., Cornish College of the Arts -- Theatre with emphasis on Original WorksGraduate, Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, Acting
J.R. Yancher (he/him) is a Canadian/American actor, director,
writer, and producer. In 2017 he co-founded Bike City Theater
Company (BCTC): a Northern California-based nonprofit focused on
bespoke educational theater for young audiences and the
sustainable development of original works. Yancher’s theaters of
employ have included Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Victory
Gardens, Pacific Conservatory Theater, Sacramento Ballet, Capital
Stage, Seattle Immersive Theater, Ten Chimneys, Catalyst: A
Theatre Think Tank, and Davis Shakespeare Festival, amongst
others.
B.S., University of California, Davis -- Food ScienceM.S., University of California, Davis -- Food Science
Ann Dragich has tap danced in NYC from 2008-2020. There she is a
member of Cole Collective. She steps in company “Momentum” and
was featured in Rick Owens Spring 2014 Women’s show at Paris
Fashion Week. Ann has presented work in various shows around New
York city including the Emerging Choreographer’s Series curated
by Mare Nostrom Elements, Flamenco Certamen USA and Tony Waag’s
“Somthing’s Afoot,” and venues such as Symphony Space, the Bruno
Walter’s Auditorium at Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library and
La Guardia Performing Arts Center.
Brighton Polytechnic, B.A. Visual and Performance Arts
Barnaby O’Rorke is an interdisciplinary artist working in the
fields of theater, music, and dance for the past 30 years in
Europe. His physical training in dance, improvisation,
somatic practices, yoga and chi kung have informed his work in
music (cello, piano, voice, objects). He has worked for several
dance companies as a dancer and musician, and has developed
innovative solo and collaborative work in his field.
University of Chicago, B.A., General Studies in the Humanities
An actor and dialect coach, Danielle has been seen at a number of
Bay Area companies from Marin Theatre Company, to TheatreWorks,
Shotgun Players to Crowded Fire. Danielle is an Associate Artist
with TheatreFIRST, Symmetry Theatre Company, and PlayGround
SF. Her interests lie in devised performances that communicate by
employing surprising visual elements and unusual use of
language. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago.
Jennifer Grace received her BA from Kansas State University in
1997. She has been working as a professional actor since, most
notably in a record-shattering run as Emily Webb in Tony
award-winning director David Cromer’s critically acclaimed
production of OUR TOWN, which she performed in Chicago, New York
and Los Angeles, opposite actors such as Michael Shannon, Helen
Hunt and Michael McKean, and for which she was recognized with a
Theatre World Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway debut.
Universidad Finis Terrae, B.F.A., TheaterUniversidad Finis Terrae, B.A., Education
Verónica Díaz-Muñíz is a Chilean director, playwright and theater
educator with a background in the area of movement and
testimonial theater. Her work engages with questions of gender
and womanhood, and her creations evolve from a particularly
feminist perspective. She is a founding member of “Toma Teatro”
in which she has served as director and playwright since 2015.
Her research aims to create alternative theatrical spaces and
practices where liminality converges with the political.
Karola Lüttringhaus was born and grew up in Berlin, Germany,
where she founded ALBAN ELVED DANCE COMPANY in 1997 to form an
outlet for her diverse artistic pursuits in dance, visual art,
film, scenic design and sound design. She has worked as a
freelance artist, choreographer and educator at theatres and
universities across Europe and the US. In 2007, she incubated the
SARUS FESTIVAL for Site-specific & Experimental Art in 2007 in
Wilmington, NC.
B.A. Theatre and Dance, James Madison University, 2006
Isa is a performing artist and somatic researcher who has
worked for over a decade with movement/dance modalities and
experimental theatre techniques that promote self reflection.
Through her developing methodology, Dialoguing the
Unconscious, and her Ph.D research, she is investigating the
question: How do we share/acknowledge knowledge that can’t (in a
“regular” way) be seen? She is deeply invested in pre-colonized
ways of knowing.
M.A., Devised Theatre, Dartington College of Arts, Falmouth University, EnglandB.A., Theatre, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York City
Sarah Ashford
Hart is a socially engaged performance practitioner,
scholar, and educator from a Canadian-Venezuelan-American family
background. Over the past twelve years she
has developed her arts practice in Russia, England,
Venezuela, Chile and the United States.
Ante’s interest as an academic researcher in the domain of circus
is in acts, events, shows, and performances that offer a unique
set of possibilities to widen perception of circus; what and who
it encompasses, its politics. Currently, he is investigating the
animal-human relationship in traditional and contemporary circus.
Most of his career as a performer and choreographer has taken
place in the field of New Circus. Ante visited the circus school
in Brussels (ESAC) and Berlin (Die Etage) and Moscow.
he / him / hisPhD Candidate, Performance Studies - UC DavisMFA, Directing for Theater, Film and Television - UCLABA, Theatre and Dance - UC Davis
Tom finds motivation for his research in fatherhood, play, fun,
theatre, and games. His curiosity runs deep when it comes
to understanding the phenomena associated with joy, enthusiasm,
inspiration, and flow.
He founded the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble in 2004, where he
served as Artistic Director for over a decade. Tom also
presided over the historic Powerhouse Theatre as Managing
Director during the Ensemble’s tenure (2008- 2011).
Deepa Mahadevan is a classical Indian dancer and the
Founder/Artistic Director of Tiruchitrambalam School of dance,
Union City,CA. She is interested in examining the role of gender,
caste, sex, class and religion in the form and content of the
dance form Bharatnatyam, a South Indian neoclassical dance
form. Her research interest proceeds to delve into the
transmission of this dance to second generation immigrant
students, especially in the context of the North American
Diaspora.
Eric’s artmaking, clinical work and academic research are
organized around the material aesthetics of psychoanalysis. He is
in private practice in Davis and San Francisco, and his project
is an aesthetic (mis)translation of developmental attachment
theory into a feminist materialist revision of the psychoanalytic
project.
Ekaterina Zharinova is a contemporary dance artist, curator, and
scholar from Yekaterinburg, Russia. From 2000 to 2005, Ekaterina
danced with the Provincial Dances Theatre in Yekaterinburg,
Russia, touring across the country and abroad. Since 2006, she
has been creating work independently and in collaborations to
present her choreography nationally and internationally.
Bobbie Wynn Bolden, UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance
professor and the godmother of the university’s dance program,
retired in 2003 after 18 years of teaching. She will always be
remembered for dancing to the beat of her own drummer.
William E. Kleb taught theatre history, critical theory and
playwriting in the Department of Theatre & Dance from 1974 to
1994, when he retired. During that time, he served on numerous
department and university administrative committees and chaired
the graduate program.
Thomas J. Munn, an internationally recognized Lighting Designer,
has designed for theatre, opera, ballet, television, videos, and
industrials. A graduate of Boston University School of Fine and
Applied Arts in Design, he made his Broadway debut in 1974
designing scenery for Brightowerby Dore Schary.
Barbara Sellers-Young taught movement, acting and Asian theatre
at the Department of Theatre & Dance from 1993 to 2008. She
served on various university committees at UC Davis, taught as a
member of the Davis Honors program and was Chair of Theatre &
Dance from summer 2001 through spring 2006. She also served as
Interim Executive Director of the Mondavi Center from April 2005
until June 2006.
Theatre Department Chair, 1956–1989Ph.D., Stanford University
Ted Shank was the Founding Chair of the Theatre Department at UC
Davis and taught in the department for 33 years, from 1956 to
1989. He then transferred to the UC San Diego Theatre Department
where his wife, UC Davis alumna Adele Edling Shank, was
Department Chair. Shank was promoted to Distinguished
Professor of Theatre and taught in the department until retiring.
The department of Theatre & Dance offers studies leading to the
Master of Fine Arts degree in Dramatic Art. See the Graduate Program section for detailed
information. Current MFA students are listed below.
Universidad Finis Terrae, B.F.A., TheaterUniversidad Finis Terrae, B.A., Education
Verónica Díaz-Muñíz is a Chilean director, playwright and theater
educator with a background in the area of movement and
testimonial theater. Her work engages with questions of gender
and womanhood, and her creations evolve from a particularly
feminist perspective. She is a founding member of “Toma Teatro”
in which she has served as director and playwright since 2015.
Her research aims to create alternative theatrical spaces and
practices where liminality converges with the political.
B.S., University of California, Davis -- Food ScienceM.S., University of California, Davis -- Food Science
Ann Dragich has tap danced in NYC from 2008-2020. There she is a
member of Cole Collective. She steps in company “Momentum” and
was featured in Rick Owens Spring 2014 Women’s show at Paris
Fashion Week. Ann has presented work in various shows around New
York city including the Emerging Choreographer’s Series curated
by Mare Nostrom Elements, Flamenco Certamen USA and Tony Waag’s
“Somthing’s Afoot,” and venues such as Symphony Space, the Bruno
Walter’s Auditorium at Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library and
La Guardia Performing Arts Center.
University of Central Florida, B.A. Theatre (Stage Management Specialization)
Joseph Fletcher has worked as a director, content creator, stage
manager, producer, and arts administrator for over fifteen years.
He has experience working in NYC, regionally, and
internationally, past companies include Cirque Du Sole’s La
Nouba, The Walnut Street Theatre, the National Tour
of Chicago the Musical, The Signature Theatre, Target
Margin, and Riverside Theatre. A graduate from the
University of Central Florida with a BFA in Theatre, Joseph has
trained with Sojourn Theatre and Double Edge Theatre.
Jennifer Grace received her BA from Kansas State University in
1997. She has been working as a professional actor since, most
notably in a record-shattering run as Emily Webb in Tony
award-winning director David Cromer’s critically acclaimed
production of OUR TOWN, which she performed in Chicago, New York
and Los Angeles, opposite actors such as Michael Shannon, Helen
Hunt and Michael McKean, and for which she was recognized with a
Theatre World Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway debut.
University of Chicago, B.A., General Studies in the Humanities
An actor and dialect coach, Danielle has been seen at a number of
Bay Area companies from Marin Theatre Company, to TheatreWorks,
Shotgun Players to Crowded Fire. Danielle is an Associate Artist
with TheatreFIRST, Symmetry Theatre Company, and PlayGround
SF. Her interests lie in devised performances that communicate by
employing surprising visual elements and unusual use of
language. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago.
Brighton Polytechnic, B.A. Visual and Performance Arts
Barnaby O’Rorke is an interdisciplinary artist working in the
fields of theater, music, and dance for the past 30 years in
Europe. His physical training in dance, improvisation,
somatic practices, yoga and chi kung have informed his work in
music (cello, piano, voice, objects). He has worked for several
dance companies as a dancer and musician, and has developed
innovative solo and collaborative work in his field.
University of California, Davis, B.A. in Dramatic Art and CommunicationSan Francisco State University, M.A., Drama
Janey Pintar is an actor, director, and educator of the theatre
arts with a background in movement including Suzuki. She received
Bachelor of Arts degrees from UC Davis and a Master of Arts
degree from San Francisco State University. Her interests include
the exploration of movement systems and multicultural theatre
practices. Janey worked as a theatre teaching artist for the
Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission through the Kennedy
Center’s Any Given Child Program, and for the Sacramento Theatre
Company.
B.F.A., Cornish College of the Arts -- Theatre with emphasis on Original WorksGraduate, Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, Acting
J.R. Yancher (he/him) is a Canadian/American actor, director,
writer, and producer. In 2017 he co-founded Bike City Theater
Company (BCTC): a Northern California-based nonprofit focused on
bespoke educational theater for young audiences and the
sustainable development of original works. Yancher’s theaters of
employ have included Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Victory
Gardens, Pacific Conservatory Theater, Sacramento Ballet, Capital
Stage, Seattle Immersive Theater, Ten Chimneys, Catalyst: A
Theatre Think Tank, and Davis Shakespeare Festival, amongst
others.
Alumni from the Theatre and Dance Department work all over the
world in film, television, theatre, industry, education, and arts
administration. Our alumni are very important to us, so keep in
touch! If your contact information changes, please send us an
update using our Alumni update form. We send our department
newsletter to all alumni each fall. Please let us know what you
are up to by June of each year so we can include your news.
Recently at the College of Southern Nevada he played Emil
in Jeffery Hatcher’s Three Viewings, Mike Talman in Wait Until
Dark and co-directed Reefer Madness. He just finished his fifth
year teaching theatre to high school and Complete Works of
William Shakespeare (Abridged) (herself) and Dracula (Mrs.
Westenra) at Acalanes High School.
A native of rural New England and graduate of Reed College in
Oregon, Darren Blaney is a teacher, essayist, playwright, solo
performer, actor, and director. He graduated with a PhD in
Dramatic Art with a graduate minor in Critical Theory from UC
Davis in 2009. His doctoral dissertation was
entitled: ”Staging the Social and Cruising the Crisis: A
Genealogy of Utopian Aspiration in U.S. Queer Theater from the
1960s to the Present.”
taught theatre at the International School of Brussels, Belgium
for the first six months after graduation, then took a
one-semester job teaching acting and improv at South Lake Tahoe
Community College. He landed a role in Foothill Theatre Company’s
two-person comedy A Tuna Christmas, moved to Los Angeles in fall
2000 and worked for the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film
Program. Although Sundance is best known for its Film Festival,
it is appreciated in the independent film community for its film
program.
lives in Kenwood, CA. She is a full-time faculty member in
Theatre Arts at Santa Rosa Junior College where she directed the
world premiere of Watermelon Nights, adapted from the Greg
Sarris’ novel. Leslie directed The Kitchen Side of the Door, Word
for Word Theatre Company’s holiday show at the Magic Theatre in
San Francisco. Leslie has also acted with the California
Shakespeare Festival, Marin Theatre Company, Intersection for the
Arts, TheatreWorks, Shakespeare at the Beach, and the Willows,
among others.
owns the American Blues Theatre, 2337 Pacific Avenue on the
Miracle Mile in Stockton, CA.. This spring Harvey plays George in
the American Blues Theatre Company’s production of Who’s Afraid
of Virginia Woolf.
Sue Murphy (BA 1979)
Now living in Los Angeles, was nominated for a 2001 American
Comedy Award for Best Female Standup. She has appeared on Late
Night with David Letterman, HBO, and many times on The Tonight
Show with Jay Leno. Catch her act in her own half-hour comedy
special on Comedy Central.
Robert Károly Sarlós was born into an assimilated Jewish
family (a shirt tailor/ haberdasher and a saleslady/housewife)
June 6, 1931, in Budapest, Hungary, and attended the city’s
renowned Lutheran High School (EvangÈlikus Gimn·zium). Admitted
in 1949 to a select class in stage direction at the Hungarian
Academy of Theatre and Film Arts, he was after one semester
expelled for “bourgeois” descent AND thinking. He became a
lathe-operator, served in the Hungarian (“Peoples”) Army, studied
theatre history, had a small part in the 1956 revolution and then
left his native land.
Former UC Davis professor of theatre and dance, costume design,
Phyllis J. Kress of Sacramento, California, passed away on
Sunday, July 10, 2016, at 77 years of age. Kress retired in 1998
after 32 years at UC Davis.
Alan A. Stambusky (1929 – 2011) became
chair of what was then called Dramatic Art and Speech (now
the Department of Theatre and Dance) in 1964.
He retired in 1991.
The following obituary was written in 2011 by Elin Diamond,
professor of English and director of the Graduate Program in
Comparative Literature at Rutgers University. Diamond, who
specializes in feminist criticism and dramatic theory, earned her
doctorate and master’s degree at UC Davis. See the New York Times
obituary
here.
Della Davidson was a vital creative force for the Department of
Theatre and Dance for over ten years and was a central figure in
the Bay Area dance world since the early 1980s. She has been
described as one of the West Coast’s most fluent writers for the
body, a dance maker of works that ruminate with poignancy and
beauty on topics ranging from a woman’s anger to disease, death
and the fragility of human existence. Her work echoed with
references to the United States tradition in modern dance, and
yet her dancers perform with a passionate abandonment of
commitment and rage.
Robin Gray, Production Stage Manager, has worked, locally, for
Music Circus, B Street Theater, Capital Stage and for the
Sacramento Theater Company. She worked on Hugh Jackman’s
pre-Broadway show at the Curran in San Francisco in 2012. She
last toured for Kansas City Starlight with Hello Dolly
starring Michele Lee. Regionally, she stage-managed Phantom
of the Opera in San Francisco. Before moving to Sacramento,
Ms.
