Download Training News Spring 2016 - University of Missouri

Spring 2016
Training News
Photos:
Cover:
Cast of Freedom Rider.
UMKC Theatre 2015
TRAINING NEWS
Writers:
Jamie Alderiso
Amanda Davison
Andrew Hagerty
Dalton Pierce
David Ruis
Collin Vorbeck
Ethan Zogg
Project Manager:
Tom Mardikes
Design/Layout Manager:
Sarah M. Oliver
Editors:
Felicia Londré
Cindy Stofiel
Collin Vorbeck
Designer:
Kate Mott
Collective Collaboration 1
En Charrette 3
Lightning Strikes Twice in Scenic Design 5
Illuminating Projections 8
Matt Carter and the Hudson Scenic Studio 10
Professional Educators 12
Professors Stay Sharp 14
Working Actors 18
A Lasting Bond 20
Sound Mandala 22
Graduate Students Strut Their Stuff 23
A National Collaboration 26
Alumni at Work 28
Shaping Stage Managers 35
Playwrighting: The Art and the Craft 36
A Vocal Homecoming 37
Fringe With Benefits 39
Dramaturgs on the Rise 41
Inside Front:
From Top:
Joshua Gilman in The
Learned Ladies.
UMKC Theatre 2015
Korrie Murphy in
The Rocky Horror Show.
UMKC Theatre 2015
Alex Ritchie in Wittenberg.
UMKC Theatre 2015
Inside Front Facing Page:
Mariem Diaz, Frank Oakley,
and Aishah Ogbeh in Freedom Rider.
UMKC Theatre 2015
Inside Back From Left:
Cast of Wittenberg.
UMKC Theatre 2015
Frank Lillig and Korrie
Murphy in Pericles.
UMKC Theatre 2014
Michael Thayer in
The Learned Ladies.
UMKC Theatre 2015
Back:
Cast of Caucasian Chalk
Circle.
UMKC Theatre 2014
Above photos courtesy of
Brian Paulette
UMKC Theatre is composed of a team of creative, educational professionals who work actively in the professional theatre. We build bridges. We assist the creative student to make the journey to becoming a
creative professional. The practice of the department is to vigorously
educate students in the many arts, crafts and traditions of theatre, and
to provide a basis for future careers in the creative industries. Our specialties are the development of actors, designers, technicians and historians. We expose our students to a wide range of theatrical influences
and traditions. Under the guidance of extremely experienced mentors,
creativity and professional discipline are valued and developed. Our
program offers intensive hands-on experience, in a conservatory training tradition, while at the same time fostering the analytical and
contextual skills offered by a liberal arts education. The whole of greater
Kansas City is our auditorium. The practical experience of theatre-making occurs not only within the performing venues of UMKC, but also
in many professional theatres in the Kansas City area. We therefore
stress theatre’s role in the overall civic dialogue, as well as giving our
students professional exposure, and contacts. Theatre is a passion. We
seek it, train for it and embody it.
Goals and Objectives
- To provide our students with the skills necessary to establish
rewarding careers in an expanding and rapidly changing profession.
- To strengthen and develop relationships with professional theatres,
artists and communities in greater Kansas City, and to devise major
projects and initiatives which can make an impact on the national stage.
- To expand working spaces for our productions, rehearsals and craft
shops.
- To enhance the network of UMKC Theatre alumni who will maintain
their participation by supporting current students and new theatre-making initiatives in Kansas City
- To further strengthen our national reputation as a major American theatre training institution.
T
he UMKC MFA program in Acting is a rigorous conservatory experience that provides advanced training for the young
professional actor. Over the course of three years, the program challenges actors to develop the varied skills necessary to achieve
success.
Fundamental to the training is an exposure to a diverse set of performance methods from contemporary to epic, from devised
work to Shakespeare, from the Greeks to new plays commissioned and premiered by us. This unique program seeks individuals who
will bring their full hearts, minds, consciences and artistic souls to the discovery of personal, foundational and daring acting techniques.
Our national and internationally recognized faculty is committed to partnering with such individual talents with the goal of guiding them
to their fullest creative potential.
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
by Dalton Pierce
T
Thayer quickly learned that acting pro
he UMKC Theatre program has Michael Thayer (MFA Acting
fessionally is slightly different from peran established tradition of working with
2016)is one of many UMKC students to
forming in an educational setting. “The
professional theatres so that its actors, de- have the opportunity to work at The Unisigners, and stage managers may benefit corn. He performed in Bengal Tiger at the rehearsal time is cut in half,” Thayer said.
“When you work in an educational setting,
from the experience of working on a proBaghdad Zoo last year, and will be the
it’s like a lab. You can experiment and try
fessional show. Few theatre departments
understudy in the one-man show Buyer
new things. In the professional setting,
grant students this opportunity, but
and Cellar.
UMKC partners with the
it’s still a lab, but you have to
Unicorn Theatre, The Coterie,
come to it quicker.” Working on
and the KC Rep. These partthese shows also allows Thaynerships allow the future proer to build Equity points, which
fessionals to gain experienccan ease the process of audies as well as providing them
tioning in a city such as New
an opportunity to establish
York. None of these skills could
their names in Kansas City.
have been obtained without
The Department of
the training he received from
Theatre will partner with the
the department. “UMKC has
Unicorn theatre to perform
given me so many tools. The
Mr. Burns, a post-electric
techniques that they give us
play, written by Anne Washallow us to adapt them in our
burn. This play tells the story
own work.”
of a group of people who
The Coterie has long
perform an episode of The
been a partner of UMKC,
Simpsons after surviving
and past collaborations have
an apocalyptic shutdown of
included Oliver Twist, The
electricity. Directed by UMKC
Hobbit, A Village Fable: In the
faculty member Theodore
Suicide Mountains (a producSwetz, this play examines the
tion that moved to the Kennedy
lasting effect that popular
Center), Arthur Miller’s Playing
Damron Russel Armstrong and Michael Thayer in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,
culture can have on enterfor Time, Our Town, and Lois
Unicorn Theatre. Directed by Ian R. Crawford, 2014.
tainment and performance.
Photo courtesy of the Unicorn Theatre
Lowry’s Number The Stars.
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1
Last year the co-production was The
Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, a
play that allowed the cast of four third-year
actors to perform multiple roles throughout
the 60-minute production. This year’s collaboration is And Justice For Some: The
Trial of Anthony Burn, written by Wendy
Lement and Bethany Dunakin. This work
tells the story of an escaped slave, who is
unjustly sent back to his Southern master.
2
The resulting court case was the driving force that got Lincoln into the White
House. Directed by Jeff Church, this play
engages the audience by having them act
as “1858 Massachusetts State Senators
[who] discuss the themes at the end of the
play.”
The co-production with KC Rep is
the classical Dickens story A Christmas
Carol. There is also something exciting
happening to Spencer Theatre, located
in the Olson Performing Arts Center. The
construction, which began in May, adds a
new stage floor, as well as new acoustic
and lighting designs. Spencer Theatre will
also get an expanded lobby, as well as
new restrooms and a second-floor lounge.
The construction will be finished in time
for the annual production of A Christmas
Carol, which will feature several of our
graduate students in various roles.
Spencer Christensen, Nicole Marie Green, and Emily Nan Phillips in The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
The Coterie Theatre 2015.
Photo courtesy of the Coterie Theatre
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
by David Ruis & Collin Vorbeck
T
Victoria Morgan critiques student designs for the ballet The Wizard of Oz.
Photo by Jae Shanks
he term charrette (the French word for
cart) dates back to the Ecole des Beaux Arts in
19th-century Paris. It can be defined in two ways:
a trip on a cart for a criminal facing the guillotine
or a session during which focused design students
rigorously work to beat the clock on arts projects
being pulled on a cart – the final product then being
critiqued by a master artist.
Luckily, UMKC Theatre has been
experiencing the latter since 1994, when Hall Family Foundation Professor John Ezell planted the
first seed by bringing in Mary Zimmerman to work
with MFA design students in this intensive format.
Many award-winning guest master designers have
followed over the past two decades, including David
and Karen Shulz-Gropman, Fiona Shaw, Eldon
Elder, Ralph Koltai, Ricardo Khan, Deborah
Nadoolman Landis, Willa Kim, and George Tsypin.
David and Karen Shulz-Gropman, production
designers for the film Life of Pi, found the UMKC
charrette experience to be stimulating and rewarding. They stated, “Professors John Ezell and Gene
Friedman have organized and structured an ideal
learning environment. For us, the chance to collaborate with the design students on the charrette was
so refreshing, a true gift.”
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
3
The charrette process is an actionpacked endeavor, with students creating
and presenting their designs to the master artist within a matter of days. From
research to sketches to conceptualizing
a theatrical project, the process is invigorating for both students and masters
alike. David and Karen Shulz-Gropman
both say, “The opportunity to have full
concentration on a single design project is
a dream. Add to that the imaginations of
your mentors: Lindsay Davis, Victor En Yu
Tan, and peers, and you are in a tank with
no limits.”
The 2015 charrette master was
Victoria Morgan, Artistic Director of the
Cincinnati Ballet, challenging the students
in the development of a new narrative
ballet based on the illustrations used for
the 1905 edition of L. Frank Baum’s novel
The Wizard of Oz. The process led not
only to immeasurable academic growth for
the graduate students involved, but also
to professional work for Alexander LaFrance (MFA Scene Design 2015).
Ethan Newman (MFA Lighting
Design 2017) couldn’t believe how much
he learned from his first charrette in 2015.
“I’d heard so much about the process
when I visited that it was part of my decision to attend UMKC. I was floored by
what it did for me. The collaboration, the
encouragement (not only from the charrette master, but also from my professors
and peers), and the focus: every part of
the experience helped me to grow both as
an artist and a theatre professional.”
4
Jae Shanks (MFA Sound Design
2017) was impressed by how the charrette was able to incorporate her studies
in sound design. “I was excited to show
Victoria Morgan what a sound designer
could bring to a ballet. Even with a symphony providing the music, I was able to
give her an idea of what else could be
done to enhance the production. She was
very receptive and provided encouraging
feedback to all of us.” UMKC Theatre’s
charrette is a total immersive experience
and is often accompanied by readings,
classes, or different events that will inform or inspire the students to be able to
do their best work. Said Gretchen Halle
(MFA Costume Design 2017), “With my
dance background, working with Victoria
Morgan from the the Cincinnati Ballet
was wonderful. I especially enjoyed participating in her ballet class which combined conservatory dancers with design
students, so that designers could better
understand the dancer’s experience.”
“Yes!” offered scenic and costume designer Zoe Still, “and it is an eye-opening
experience to see how much you can
get done in such a short amount of time.”
The experience forces you to trust your
instincts.” Added Max Levitt (MFA Costume Design 2017) as a summation of
the 2015 charrette, “At the end of the day,
after having worked so closely with one’s
peers, it is wonderful to be able to walk
away feeling that everyone I study with
is exceptional.” Mission accomplished for
another Master’s charrette.
2015 Charrette Master Victoria Morgan mentoring costume design student, Tyler Wilson.
Photo by Jae Shanks
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Alexander LaFrance and The Silver Shoes
by Amanda Davison
Alexander LaFrance’s theatre background encompasses everything from
acting to directing to stage management.
Victoria Morgan, the artistic director and
CEO of the Cincinnati Ballet, was brought
to the Department of Theatre to conduct a
charrette with Professors Ezell and Friedman.
This gave students across theatre disciplines access to collaboration with working
professionals. A charrette, a collaborative
session during which students work with
professionals on real projects, provides
students the chance to shine, hone skills,
and potentially have their work seen in a
professional production.
T
wo scenic design graduate students found artistic inspiration and real-world
alliances through professional mentorship
opportunities at the UMKC Department of
Theatre. “When this happens,” says Gene
Friedman, assistant professor of scenic
design, “We call it ‘lightning striking’; it is that
astonishing chemistry that happens on rare
occasion between a designer and a director.”
Jeff Ridenour (MFA Scene Design
2014) and Alexander LaFrance (MFA
Scene Design 2015) forged strong professional relationships while they were still
graduate students at UMKC. They created
scene design magic when they were given
opportunities to work with professional directors, artistic directors and choreographers.
Freedom Rider stage design by Alexander LaFrance.
Photo by Brian Paulette
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
5
LaFrance found inspiration in Ms.
Morgan and her aesthetic, as well as in the
topic of the 2014 charrette: a new ballet
based on L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of
Oz. What most interested LaFrance were
the parallels between the ballerina’s psychological journey and that of Dorothy’s. “I
presented my ideas,” he said, “at the risk
of them being rejected, only to find them
embraced and encouraged by Victoria.”
That risky spark of creativity, ultimately, led
to LaFrance being hired as concept creator,
librettist, and designer of sets, costumes,
and projections for the concept that he and
Ms. Morgan developed in the charrette:
The Silver Shoes: The Ballerina in Oz. An
original score will be composed for the
debut at the Cincinnati Ballet and none
other than Victoria Morgan herself will choreograph the ballet. The ballet, for which
LaFrance is receiving full professional
credit for scenic design, will be produced in
the spring of 2017. In addition to the ballet,
Alex is also designing The Ghosts of Lote
Bravo, a world premiere being produced at
Cynthia Levin’s Unicorn Theater — another
professional relationship that Alex forged
while studying at UMKC.
Alexander LaFrance has also been
awarded one of the most coveted internships in the country. In January 2016, he
will embark on a five-month journey as an
art design intern with Disney’s Creative
Entertainment. Thousands of applicants
vie for a spot in this program, from across
America and across the globe. LaFrance
will relocate to Los Angeles to participate in this professional, fully-funded program. It will be the experience of a lifetime.
Alexander LaFrance
6
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
Jeff Ridenour and Cendrillon
Jeff Ridenour, in his third year at UMKC, was given the
opportunity to design the opera Cendrillon for UMKC’s Conservatory of Music and Dance. Jeff did not know who the opera
director Fenlon Lamb was when he was assigned the project.
Jeff recently related how working with a visionary director like
Fenlon Lamb altered the trajectory of his professional career.
“From our first meeting Fenlon and I found that we not only had
a very similar understanding and vision for Cendrillon but had
a common language and sense of style and aesthetics that
meshed together.” Jeff found design inspiration for the opera
from the illustrator Erté’s glamorous depictions of 1920s style
and modern sophistication. Don Dagenais, writing in the KC Metropolis hailed the production as “splendid”, and described it as
“the most spectacular visual production this observer has seen
in over 30 years of opera.”
Since then, Ridenour and Ms. Lamb have also worked
professionally on the operas Hansel and Gretel, La Bohème,
and Little Women. They will be collaborating as a creative team
Hansel and Gretel stage design by Jeff Ridenour
for Nightingale Opera Theatre.
Photo by Jeff Ridenour
again on Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, or The Magic Flute, for the
Conservatory of Music. Ridenour and Lamb are currently developing a production company, Papermoon Productions. The
company was conceived after their innovative collaboration on La
Bohème, in which the costumes and settings were made largely
of paper. The mission of the company is to develop affordable
and innovative designs to promote the powerful experience of
live opera. The company will be particularly focusing on touring
productions to intimate venues for smaller communities that usually cannot afford to produce opera.
Jeff Ridenour has moved to New York City, where he is
serving as assistant designer to world-renowned scenographer
George Tsypin on major projects including Manon Lescaut for the
Berlin Staatsoper and the St. Petersburg Mikhailovsky Theatre.
Cendrillon stage design by Jeff Ridenour for UMKC Conservatory of Music.
Photo by Mike Strong
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7
“I am thankful that I can look back to UMKC and
remember where my artistic identity was born.
Without the program at UMKC, I would not be
the designer, teacher, or mentor for my students
that I have now become.”
--David Hardy (MFA Lighting 2002)
by David Ruis
L
8
ighting design has come a
long way in the theatre since ancient
Greek times when artists relied on
the sun to illuminate the stage for
their theatrical productions. This
would evolve over time to the use
of burning torches and candles to
enhance the play’s mood. Lighting
set the tone, supported the scenes,
and gave the audience a desired
visual into the intensity and emotional center of the piece. Lighting
brings together all of the elements
(actors, set, costumes, props, etc.)
of the play into a cohesive look. The
ever-growing field in computers and
digital technology has given birth to
the next evolution of this powerful
medium – projection design. The
lighting designer now has the ability
to catapult this field into new frontiers on stage with digital animation
and automated moving projectors,
and give the audience a spectacular
experience.
A projection design program has not yet been established
at UMKC but that has not stopped
Sunday in the Park with George lighting design by Jeffrey Cady.
Photo courtesy of Kansas City Repertory Theatre
A Christmas Carol lighing & projections
design by Jeffrey Cady.
Photo courtesy of Kansas City Repertory Theatre
student lighting designers from learning about the
medium and incorporating projections into their own
designs. A big help has been from previous UMKC
lighting alums, like Jeffrey Cady (MFA Lighting
1996) and Adam Dunaway (MFA Lighting 1998),
mentoring student designers through master classes
and residencies.
The University of Missouri-Kansas City has
unleashed a plethora of stellar lighting designers, tattooing their fiercely dedicated work ethic and powerful artistry in lighting and projections design onto the
theatre world.
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
Temishia Johnson (MFA Lighting 2006) made her Broadway debut in
2008 assisting lighting designer William H.
Grant III on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starring
James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad and
Terrence Howard. “UMKC’s MFA Theatre
Training Program really prepares you for
the industry, and how to build your reputation in the industry. I am living proof that
listening to your professors will get you
further than you ever dreamed.”
Jeff Cady (MFA Lighting 1996)
works mainly in projections, but still designs lighting. His latest work was seen
in KC Rep’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George.
Cady spent the summer with Jennifer
Lopez as the projections programmer for
her AKA tour and with Jason Aldean for
his Burn it Down tour.
Rocco DiSanti (MFA Lighting
2008) primarily works as a projections designer in New York City. He is assisted by
fellow UMKC lighting alums Doug Macur
(2014) and Devorah Kengmana (2015).
DiSanti is also the projections director for
the Shen Wei Dance Arts Company, best
known for their performance at the 2008
Beijing Summer Olympics opening ceremony. DiSanti conquered Broadway in
less than two years to design shows at the
Manhattan Theatre Club. Those include
The Snow Geese, starring Mary-Louise
Parker and directed by Daniel Sullivan;
The Columnist, starring John Lithgow; and
Wit, starring Cynthia Nixon.
Hair, Retrospective projections design by Jeffrey Cady.
Photo courtesy of Kansas City Repertory Theatre
Missy Elliott concert with lighting design by Brandon Clark.
Photo by Tom Martin from Bestival website
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
9
by Jamie Alderiso
M
10
att Carter earned his MFA in
Technical Direction (2014) and now works
at the Hudson Scenic Studio in upper
Manhattan. The UMKC alumnus describes
the particularities of his position. “By title,
I am part of the engineering department
at Hudson, but my role is typically assisting our Automation Department Head,
Chuck Adomanis. I do calculations to help
him design the machines for automated
effects.” Matt’s work involves everything
from making computer drafts for machines
and scenery for the fabricators on the shop
floor to writing purchase orders for motors,
gears, cables, and power supplies.
Additionally, Matt is beginning to
learn how to design control systems. This
skill is something that only a few people at
the Hudson Studio know how to engineer.
Matt specifies: “I have begun doing more
calculations for Chuck and will continue to
learn wiring diagrams for the electricians to
be able to wire the controls together properly.” Through the longevity of his tenure at
the Hudson Scenic Studio, Matt’s knowledge and expertise continue to grow.
Surveying “well” below stage level with tension blocks of the New Amsterdam Theatre in
preparation Aladdin moving to Broadway.
Photo by Matt Carter
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In reflecting back on his
education at UMKC, Matt
offers nothing but adamant
praise and thankfulness. Matt
affirms that “almost everything
about my qualifications and
position at Hudson is because
of UMKC's TD program. I
chose the program because I
knew I wanted to learn scenic
automation and UMKC is one
of the top programs in the
country for that education.”
He did his third-year residency at the Hudson Scenic
Studio before finally earning
his degree. This final part
of his education was pivotal
in helping shape his current
relationship with the scenic
studio. Matt also insists that
“the AutoCAD skills, automation design understanding,
and other advanced scenery
techniques like rigging that I
apply at my job daily are all
thanks to Chuck Hayes and
Chaz Bell.” Matt has earned
his place in the professional
world and remains a proud
alumnus of the UMKC
graduate program.
Matt Carter taking measurements of the grid structure of the New Amsterdam Theatre
in preparation Aladdin moving to Broadway.
Photo by Matt Carter
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
11
forward in a design. Working with an
abundance of theatres and directors, I
gleaned a clear understanding of what
the universal expectations and challenges are that arise while designing a show.”
Wilson’s exposure to UMKC’s problem
solving helped him prepare to be a truly
collaborative designer, and gave him the
skills necessary to work in the professional
world.
By Dalton Pierce
W
12
hile many graduate students
from UMKC achieve success in either
the professional world or the field of education, lucky are those who understand
the challenges of balancing each. The
UMKC costume department teaches
students to excel at both. Tyler Wilson
(‘15), Lauren T. Roark (‘14), and Larissa
McConnell (‘10) are three of many examples of success from the graduate design
and costume program. Tyler Wilson, who
teaches for Wake Forest University, has
designed at various regional companies.
Before he entered academia, Wilson’s
designs graced the stage of the Riverside
Theatre in Iowa City. Iowa was treated to
his creations for shows such as Cyrano
de Bergerac and Othello. Wilson’s relationship with Riverside was born from his
work at UMKC, and 2015 marked his third
year working for the company. He believes
that the training he received at UMKC
jumpstarted his career: “The opportunity
to collaborate with a variety of directors
throughout the professional theatre in
Kansas City was a thrilling introduction to
the pace and expectations
Costume sketch by Tyler Wilson for
Iago in Othello at Riverside Theatre 2014.
of professional theatre in the Midwest.”
Wilson believes that the most
valuable lesson he learned while in the
graduate program was how to solve
problems quickly. He believes that, for
artists, “the biggest death sentence is an
artistic block and the inability to move
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
Othello at Riverside Theater 2014.
Photo by Bob Goodfellow
Lauren T. Roark who teaches at
the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, has designed Richard II at the
Illinois Shakespeare Festival and will
design the St. Louis Repertory Theatre’s
production of Satchel Paige, which will
also see an additional production at the
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Roark
professes she received her most important training at UMKC, where she was
“given numerous opportunities to design
in Kansas City, to intern at the Arena
Stage in Washington D.C., and to work
in Asia.”
Richard II at Illinois Shakespeare Festival 2014.
Photo by Pete Guither.
Costume sketch by Lauren T. Roark for Richard II at Illinois
Shakespeare Festival 2014
Of the many skills and lessons that
Roark acquired at UMKC, the most important was the ability to trust her designs
and to eliminate fear. During her second
year in the department, she travelled to
Hong Kong “to source and manufacture
menswear for a production of The School
for Scandal produced by Riverside Theatre in the Park.” These primary lessons
helped her to understand the design process, as well as how to communicate
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effectively.
Larissa McConnell accepted a job
at Gustavus Augustus College where she
teaches classes such as Costume Craft
and Design, Costume Construction, as
well as others. She earned her BS in Secondary Education/ Earth Science at the
State University of New York at Fredonia,
which she believes helped prepare her to
teach effectively. Her recent professional
work includes being the Costume Designer/Shop Manager at the Bay View Music
Festival in Petoskey, Michigan.
McConnell’s professional work has
aided her in easily exceling in the academic sphere. Remembering her UMKC
training, McConnell understood that students working in the costume shop are
there to learn. She affirms, “Each project
must take into account the skill level of the
student involved. There are times when
the student’s learning experience trumps
production expectations.”
The training that Wilson, Roark
and McConnell received gave them the
necessary knowledge and skills to be both
teachers and to have professional careers. They possess the dynamic duality
that are the hallmarks of the graduates of
the costume department at UMKC.
13
Chaz Bell (Teaching
Assistant Professor of
Technical Theatre) has
been teaching at UMKC
since 2011. He was
previously technical
director at Southwest
Baptist University. Chaz
has served as technical
director for the Heart of America Shakespeare
Festival since 2012 and for the UMKC
Conservatory Opera program since 2010.
Chaz Bell teaches graduate courses in structural design, stage mechanics and automation, advance metal working, advanced wood
working, plastic and alternative materials,
advanced technical problem-solving, and
the undergraduate course Intro to Technical
Production. He recently designed the set for
the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival’s
production of King Lear.
Professor Bell constructing set for King Lear for
the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival.
Photo by David Eulitt
14
Lindsay W. Davis
(Professor of Costume Design) has
designed the costumes for Bengal
Tiger at the Bagdad
Zoo at the Unicorn
Theatre in Kansas
City.
Currently Mr. Davis is co-designing
Mozart's The Magic Flute at the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance. Mr. Davis is
actively working on his own original musical,
Wand'ring Blind, and steeped in his metaphysical writings.
Professor Swetz as the Tiger in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad
Zoo at the Unicorn Theatre.
Costumes designed by Professor Davis.
Directed by Ian R. Crawford, 2014.
Photo courtesy of the Unicorn Theatre
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
Sadie DeSantis
(Production Manager to
the UMKC Department
of Theatre and Assistant Teaching Professor
of Stage Management)
has experience with concerts, ballet, opera, musical theatre, and outdoor
production. In the
summer of 2014, she was the production
stage manager for a brand new production
of Thoroughly Modern Millie starring Anneliese van Der Pol in Fort Worth, Texas, for
the inaugural season of Prism Theatrics. Last
year, Ms. DeSantis was the stage manager
for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s Tosca
and assistant stage manager for LOKC’s La
Traviata. This summer she was the assistant
stage manager for Mary Poppins at Starlight
Theatre. This fall she was the stage manager
for Starlight Theatre’s 2015 Gala titled Prism:
Reflecting Forward. She is a member of the
American Guild of Musical Artists and Actors’
Equity Association. In the fall of 2015, she will
stage manage Rusalka at the Lyric Opera of
Kansas City.
John Ezell (Hall
Family Foundation
Professor of Design)
recently designed the
sets for Disgraced and
Next to Normal for the
Arizona Theatre Company--Tucson and
Phoenix, San Jose
Theatre and La Mirada--California Musical
Theatre and his award winning designs for
Next to Normal were adapted by the San Diego Musical Theatre. He designed The
Mousetrap for the Repertory Theatre of St.
Louis as well as The Winslow Boy and is
currently designing Satchel Paige and the
Kansas City Swing for Repertory Theatre of
St. Louis and the Cincinnati Playhouse. He
designed the current revival of A Christmas
Carol at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre
and the annual revival at the Great Lakes
Theatre Festival. He designed the Cincinnati
Ballet’s multi-million dollar production of The
Nutcracker now touring nationally. He serves
on the National Advisory Committee of the
Sam Fox School of Art and Architecture,
Washington University in St. Louis, and he
is a member of the College of Fellows of the
American Theatre at the Kennedy Center in
Washington, D.C.
Scenic Design Master Classes Classes. He
serves as the architectural historian of the
Nuestra Señore de Guadeloupe (1629) and
is the curator and archivist of the treasury of
the Casa de Santo Niño at Zuni Pueblo, New
Mexico. Professor Friedman has worked with
George Abbott, Gerald Freedman, Adrienne
Kennedy and Vincent Dowling among other
theatrical luminaries. His work has been seen
at the Second City Comedy Group, Lincoln
Center Institute, Kennedy Center, Historic
Ford's Theater, the Great Lakes Theatre Festival in Cleveland, the Repertory Theater of St.
Louis, Stages Saint Louis and of course, the
Kansas City Repertory Theater. He is the resident scenic designer at the Heart of America
Shakespeare Festival.
Gene Emerson Friedman
(Associate Professor of
Scenic Design) is an
award-winning scenic designer known especially for
his work on Shakespeare
and the American musical.
Professor Friedman has
been awarded the prestigious Peggy Ezekiel
Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre Arts by the United States Institute for
Theater Technology for his design drafting,
the only time this award has ever been granted in this field. He is a consultant to the J.
Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum's exhibition Creating the Modern Stage: Designs for
Theatre and Opera. He was recently cited as
“a significant artistic contributor” in the American Theater community. He teaches The
History of Design and Technology of World
Theater, Drafting for the Theater, and Rendering Techniques for the Designer, as well as
contributing his insights and experience in the
Chuck Hayes (Teaching
Professor of Technical
Direction) has been the
head of the MFA
Technical Direction program at the UMKC since
1993 and served as technical director for Kansas
City Repertory Theatre from 1993-2008. He
was previously technical director at the
University of Massachusetts/Amherst, Kent
State University and the Fort Worth Shakespeare in the Park. He is an active member of
USITT and a frequent presenter at their
national conference. He teaches graduate
courses in technical management, hand and
computerized drafting, stage mechanics and
automation, pneumatics, hydraulics and advanced rigging techniques. He holds an MFA
in design and technology from the University
of Iowa.
Felicia Hardison Londré
(Curators’ Professor of
Theatre) completed her
two-year term as Dean of
the College of Fellows of
the American Theatre at
the Kennedy Center and
now she is working on the 50th-Anniversary
Fellows Volume of Citations. She is presently
completing a book on 1940s American drama,
focusing on Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee
Williams, Arthur Miller, and Thornton Wilder,
for Methuen’s Decades of Modern American
Drama series.
King Lear at the
Heart of America Shakespeare Festival.
Photo by David Eulitt
Meanwhile she continues research for a book
on French and American theatre people as
contributors to the Allied cause in the Great
War. To that end, Dr. Londré has recently published several articles on entertainers in World
War I: “The Range of Laughter: First-Person
Reports from Entertainers of the Over There
Theatre League” in Humor Entertainment and
Popular Culture during World War I (Palgrave
Macmillan 2015), “Elsie’s Big Show: From
Entertaining Under Fire to Firing Stories in All
Directions” in Old Stories, New Readings:
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
15
16
The Transforming Power of American Drama
(Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), “Sarah Bernhardt’s Last Stand in America: How
the One-Legged Actress Promoted American
Involvement in the Great War” in New England Theatre Journal (vol. 25, 2014). Her
recent articles on Tennessee Williams are: “En
Avant! Tennessee Williams between Hyperborea and the Mediterranean” in Tennessee
Williams and Europe: Intercultural Encounters
Transatlantic Exchanges, (Rodopi, 2014) and
“A Vast Traumatic Eye: Culture Absorbed and
Refigured in Tennessee Williams’s Transitional Plays” in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams (Bloomsbury, 2014). She recently gave
two conference presentations: “Welcoming
the Menace: Thornton Wilder’s Alcestiad and
Shadow of a Doubt” at the Second International Thornton Wilder Conference in Newport
RI in June and “Quelque Chose de Tennessee” at the Mid-America Theatre Conference
in Kansas City in March 2015. She did nine
evenings of ShowTalks for Heart of America
Shakespeare Festival’s King Lear. The movie
Normandy Is My Name, in which she plays
the 90-year-old grandma of the title character,
was released in fall 2015.
Greg MacKender
(Assistant
Professor of
Theatre Sound) has
been actively
composing music for
theatre during the
last twelve months.
He is a founding member of the Kansas City
Actors Theatre, and composed for their dual
season openers in 2014; Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead. In March,
he wrote the score for the first professional
Kansas City production of The Merchant of
Venice in over fifty years. In April he traveled
to St. Louis to work with director Mike Donahue on a production of Antony and Cleopatra
for the Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis. He
closed the 2014-15 season composing King
Lear for the Heart of America Shakespeare
Festival in Kansas City. He is an Assistant
Teaching Professor in the theatre department
at the University of Missouri, Kansas City,
where he has taught sound design and composition since 1994.
Antony and Cleopatra at the Shakespeare Festival of St.
Louis, 2015. Sound design by Greg MacKender.
Photo by J. David Levy
Tom Mardikes
(Chair of UMKC
Theatre and
Professor of
Sound Design)
spent the summer of
2015 working with
sound design grad
on the Sound Mandala project in PAC 116. He
directed the UMKC Theatre production of
Wittenberg in Grant Hall Theatre. He will design sound for the March 2016 production of
Satchel Paige and the Kansas City Swing at
the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.
www.umkctheatre.org Apply Online
Carla Noack (Assistant
Professor of Acting) relishes life in the “Stretch Zone”
with her students and colleagues at UMKC. In addition
to teaching the MFA acting
progression, she recently
served as the associate
director for a production of
Romeo and Juliet for Ten Thousand Things
Theater in Minneapolis and played a version
of Wonder Woman in the world-premiere
production of Lasso of Truth at the Unicorn
Theatre. She also starred in the world-premiere production of George Brant’s one-woman play, Grounded, at the Unicorn Theatre,
and subsequently performed it in theatres in
Lanesboro, Winona, and St. Joseph, Minnesota. This summer she was invited to participate in the NYC Actors Center’s “Craftsmen
of Dionysus” National Conference, where she
enjoyed connecting with fellow acting teachers from around the country and contributed
to discussions of best practices in our field.
She was designated by this group as the midwest’s eye for emerging teaching talent. Carla
loves people and potlucks and ping-pong.
Carla Noack and Martin Buchanan in Lasso of Truth
at the Unicorn Theatre.
Photo by Cynthia Levin. Courtesy of the Unicorn Theatre
Sarah M. Oliver (Assistant Teaching Professor of Costume
Technology) Thoroughly
enjoying her return to
the Kansas City theatre
scene after her travels in
Asia, it was a pleasure to
serve as costume designer for UMKC Theatre’s production of
The Rocky Horror Show and the Kansas City
Actors Theatre production of The Gin Game.
Lindsay Nelson and Korrie Murphy in The Rocky Horror
Show. Costume design by Sarah M. Oliver.
UMKC Theatre 2015. Photo by Brian Paulette
Mrs. Oliver presented a session on international online costume collaboration at the
2015 Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference in Montreal. In December
2015, she will design costumes for Mr. Burns
at the Unicorn Theatre and in March 2016 will
serve as costume designer for The Island with
Kansas City Actors Theatre.
Stephanie Roberts (Associate Professor of Theatre)
performed at Dell'Arte
International's 40th year
reunion festival in Blue Lake
CA. She has continued her
research into the actor/creator
through presenting at the
Association of Theatre Movement Educators
Colloquium in Boulder CO and attending
Movement Theatre Studio's intensive on The
Ensemble Director in New York City. This fall
she will choreograph Mr. Burns at the Unicorn
Theatre and will be a featured artist for
Charlotte Street Foundation’s Artists’ Walks
series at the Nelson-Atkins Museum. In the
spring Professor Roberts will be directing
Immeasurable Heaven, the culmination of a
three-year devised project, which will perform
in Spencer Theatre.
Scott Stackhouse (Assistant Professor of Theatre
in Voice and Acting), a
graduate of UCLA's MFA
Acting program,has worked
nationally as an actor, director, vocal coach,and fight
choreographer. Some of his
directing credits include:
Macbeth, The Shape of Things, A Devil Inside,
A Comedy of Errors, Lysistrata, Noises Off!,
the midwest premiere of The Atomic View
Moteland, most recently, Seven Guitars and
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at UMKC. Scott
has choreographed fight sequences and
served as vocal coach in both academic and
professional productions for the last fifteen
years. He spends each summer directing for
the Seaside Repertory Theatre in Seaside,
Florida.
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
Theodore Swetz (Patricia
McIlrath Endowed Professor of Theatre Arts) started
off his summer directing
Tribes by Nina Raine at the
prestigious Unicorn Theatre
in Kansas City. The rest of
the summer included spending a fabulous month in
France--lots of cheese, wine, beautiful villages, La Comédie-Française, ancient theaters
and friends. He also started to work on an
original “Spoken Word” play with his daughter
Abigail (who is a teacher of 8th grade and a
poet) titled Navigating Violence – The Lessons of Ferguson. Ted also started preliminary work on Mr. Burns, a post electric play
by Ann Washburn, which he will direct as a
co-production with the Unicorn and UMKC
Theatre this season.
Tribes at the Unicorn Theatre.
Directed by Theodore Swetz, 2015.
Photo courtesy of the Unicorn Theatre
17
by Amanda Davison
K
ansas City, a mecca for theatre artists of all stripes, is not only training
actors, it is also providing them with an ideal environment in which to continue to
grow and work. Two of Kansas City’s brightest talents, both graduates of
UMKC’s MFA Acting program, have been working on stage since graduating.
Logan Black (MFA Acting 2014) and Nicole Marie Green (MFA Acting 2015)
both hail from other states. Black, a native of Salt Lake City, and Green, who
grew up in New York and did her undergraduate studies in Florida, were both
inspired to come to UMKC out of the desire for the high-quality acting education
they knew they would receive from a professional and inspirational faculty.
Logan Black in Bond: A Soldier and His Dog.
Fringe Festival 2015.
Photo by Jamie Leonard
Logan Black
18
“As soon as I talked to Ted Swetz,” says Black, “I didn’t consider any of the
other programs. I said, I’m going to UMKC. That’s where I need to be.” Black
says he appreciated the balance in the program between strong classical
training and modern techniques, such as those from Morris Carnovsky, which
brought out his strengths as an actor. “It’s about finding the balance of how
much is the character and how much is me, the individual. Ted’s philosophy
is so beautifully simple. It brings the character to life in a way I had never encountered before.” Some of Black’s previous work includes roles in the KC Rep
productions of Our Town and A Christmas Carol, in Blithe Spirit at the Okoboji
Summer Festival, as well as at the Coterie. Most recently, he performed at The
Fishtank his show, Bond: A Soldier and his Dog. Black spent eleven years in the
Army, one year in Iraq, and the story tells of the life-saving love between Black
and his yellow lab Diego, who worked as a bomb-detecting dog. The show, rated Best of Fringe 2015, has received rave reviews and is known to elicit powerful emotions from those who see it.
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
“Jennifer Martin, who had the biggest heart
and taught me to first honor life, and with
it, my life in the theatre. Felicia Londré is
an inspiration because she is absolutely
an expert in what she does. Carla Noack
taught me to use my body as a tool. Ted
Swetz taught me to have ownership of my
craft. Stephanie Roberts ignited my intense
passion for mask work, red nose clown, and
comedy; her classes demanded everything
from me.” Not long after graduating, Green
has been busy. Last summer, she was cast
in Tribes at the Unicorn and in two Fringe
shows, one of which was ThisThatThen at
the Living Room. She is currently rehearsing
for The Turn of the Screw by Jeffrey Hatcher at Spinning Tree Theatre, and will play
as Margot in the KC Rep production of The
Diary of Anne Frank. “I love what I do,” she
says. It shows.
Nicole Marie Green in The Liar.
UMKC Theatre 2015.
Photo by Brian Paulette
Nicole Marie Green in The Miraculous Journey of
Edward Tulane,
The Coterie Theatre 2015.
Photo courtesy of Coterie Theatre
For Nicole Marie Green, the
decision to jump into UMKC and Kansas City was a big one, and one that
has paid off. “UMKC changed me. I
am a better actor because of it. I made
lasting friendships, I was put through a
lot of tests. I grew up. I found my own
voice.” When asked which faculty made
the most impact on her time there, she
struggles to pick just one:
Nicole Marie Green in Tribes, Unicorn Theatre 2015.
Directed by Theodore Swetz.
Photo courtesy of Unicorn Theatre
www.umkctheatre.org Apply Online
“UMKC changed me.
I am a better actor
because of it. I made
lasting friendships, I
was put through a lot
of tests. I grew up. I
found my own voice.”
- Nicole Marie Green
19
by Collin Vorbeck
A
20
into what is being produced on the profes
s UMKC Theatre endeavors to sional level.”
enrich the graduate program with
Chanos served as an assistant
professional experiences across the city
professor of theatre at Pepperdine Univerand beyond, two newly-hired members
sity, teaching Advanced Period Styles in
of the Kansas City Repertory Theatre are
Shakespeare and Voice and Movement.
already offering outlets to current students He also served as the assistant director
to expand the relationship between the
for the Heart of America Shakespeare
institutions. Both Jason Chanos, associate Festival production of The Winter’s Tale
artistic director, and Marissa Wolf, director in 2014; this is just one example of his
of new works, see the benefits of collabo- national experiences balanced with a local
ration between the university
focus. “I look forward to utilizing
and the professional
the graduate students as much
company. Since KC Rep
as possible, working around
makes its home on the
their busy schedules to provide
campus of UMKC, crossthem with as many professional
over between the two is
opportunities as possible,” Chnot only practical, it is vianos says. As associate artistic
tal to the survival of both
director for KC Rep, he also has
Kansas City landmarks.
a hand in casting and works with
Chanos sees
the graduate program to place
UMKC as an untapped
MFA actors in the co-productions.
resource, one that he
In recent years, KC Rep produchopes to make full use
tions have featured many UMKC
of throughout his tenure
Theatre graduate students in
with KC Rep. “I come
leading and featured roles in Our
from a background in
Town, A Christmas Carol, and
academia,” he says, “so I
Romeo and Juliet.
know how important it is
In another important functo incorporate the comtion of his new role, Chanos is
munity of a university
excited to expand the audience
Jason Chanos
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
for both KC Rep and UMKC Theatre. Chanos provides materials specific to the current season offered at KC Rep to current
MA students who teach an introductory
course on Theatre to non-majors. This enables him to reach hundreds of students
who would not otherwise be exposed to
professional
theatre. He
has also made
himself and the
entire company
of the KC Rep
available to any
instructor in
need of a guest
speaker involving a current or
past production
– anything that
may enhance
the classroom
experience.
Marissa Wolf
Marissa
Wolf started
utilizing graduate talent immediately upon
her arrival at KC Rep. As a company with
a focus on cultivating work by new playwrights every season, Wolf was welcomed
to her new position by hundreds of new
play submissions yet to be read. She immediately reached out to the MA students
to assemble a play-reading committee,
and together the team has made substantial progress in giving each new play the
attention it deserves. Under the direction
of Dr. Felicia Londré, MA students
strengthen their theatrical foundation
through courses in theatre history and dramaturgy, and through these courses the
skills to critically analyze play scripts are
honed. “What a smart, insightful group of
students. Their help in this process has
been invaluable,” Wolf says.
the level of artistry and imagination among
the costume design MFA students. Their
work will be instrumental in bringing to life
the world premiere productions of Fire in
Dreamland by Rinne Groff and Lot’s Wife
by Eric Rosen.”
There are many benefits to sharing
a campus with one of the most successful
theatre companies in the region. Students
are afforded every opportunity to contribute and collaborate with professionals,
and under the direction of Jason Chanos
and Marissa Wolf, the bond between university and professional company is continually strengthened.
Jamie Dufault and Courtney Salvage in Romeo and Juliet at
The Kansas City Repertory Theatre, 2014. Photo courtesy of
the Kansas City Repertory Theatre
Sticky Traps at The Kansas City Repertory Theatre, 2015.
Costume Design by Lauren Gaston
(MFA Costume Design 2014).
Photo courtesy of Kansas City Repertory Theatre
Another part of the
development of new works
involves fully-realized productions, and Wolf is already
including the UMKC Theatre
design team in the company’s latest project. KC Rep’s
newly branded Origin KC:
New Works Festival is taking over the final slot in the
season with two world premiere productions running in
repertory. This year Wolf is
thrilled to partner with UMKC
and to have MFA costume
students design the shows. “I
am deeply impressed with
Mariem S. Diaz in The Kansas City Repertory Theatre production of Our Town,
2014. Photo courtesy of Kansas City Repertory Theatre
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
21
By Ethan Zogg
I
22
the audience on all sides, with 35 of the
speakers forming a wall-of-sound that reached
from floor to ceiling. The rig took three weeks
to build. After it was built, each speaker had
to be tuned to create the best balance for the
space. Once it was set up and adjusted, the
team began their experiments.
At first, Professor Mardikes and the
team experimented with sound placement, or
how to move sound around the space. Each
of the designers would spend time experimenting, then meet and share the techniques
and results they found. As the experiment
progressed, they moved on to mixing multitrack recordings, moving the individual tracks
around the system. The team held
n the summer of 2015, Tom Mardikes (UMKC Theatre chair) and four graduate
design students created “Sound Mandala,” a
48-speaker sound system that surrounded the
audience and gave the designers the chance
to experiment with using sound to affect how
an audience perceives a theatre space.
The idea for the experiment goes back
twenty years, when Tom Mardikes set up a
smaller, similar system on the main stage
of the KC Rep to experiment with moving
sound. That experiment had some success,
but lacked the scale needed to become fully
realized.
Fast forward to 2015.
Tom assembled a team of
three graduate sound designers (Jon Robertson, Jae
Shanks, and Jason Bauer)
and one technical direction
student (Adam Terry) to
design, build, and experiment
with a bigger, more complex
system. First, Studio 116
(UMKC’s black box theatre
space) had to be dampened
by hanging curtains and
laying down carpet. Then
the system was assembled.
Composed of 48 separate
speakers, each with its own
custom-built enclosure, the
Sound Mandala System. Photo by Jason Bauer.
“Sound Mandala” surrounded
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performances periodically, showing the system to audiences, as well as students and
other audio and theatre professionals.
At one of the later performances, Jon
Robertson played pieces he had recorded/
produced with the local artist group Ensemble
of Irreproducible Outcomes. One of the pieces
consisted of 96 separate sine-waves, each
slowly changing over the course of approximately 80 minutes. Another was made from
recordings of snow falling and synthesizers.
As you moved through the room, the sound
changed based on your location. Even if you
turned your head a little, what you heard
changed. Another piece, created by Jae
Shanks, consisted of a ghost chasing a child
around the room. As the footsteps moved, the
sound of the child running away created the
illusion of depth, as if the child were running
into the distance.
As successful as the experiments
were, the team wants to take it further. Jon
Robertson described what he saw as his next
step. “Ideally I would create a brand new theatre piece where a small cast is in the center
of the room, the audience is all around and
the sound [system] is all around as well, and
you’re story-telling through sound and live
action, but sound becomes a main character.”
By building “Sound Mandala,” Mardikes and the team have pushed the limits
of what sound can do theatrically, exploring
the way sound interacts with and affects an
audience. They’ve found new techniques to
transform a theatre, creating new worlds in
familiar spaces. The possible applications are
endless, and as they move forward in their exploration, no doubt they will give birth to a new
form, a new experience, and a new theatre in
which sound will be more powerful and more
dynamic than ever before.
MFA Acting
Chioma Anyanwu (MFA Acting 2018)
Chioma recently performed in The Taste
Test, by playwright and UMKC professor
Frank Higgins at the Just Off Broadway
Theatre. She has also performed locally at
the Unicorn Theatre, The Coterie at Night,
and the Metropolitan Theatre Ensemble,
among others.
Amy Billroth-MacLurg
(MFA Acting 2018)
Working last summer at the Livermore
Shakespeare Festival, Amy played Audrey
in As You Like It and Lucy Steele in Sense
and Sensibility. While in California, she
also participated in a TheatreWorks’ New
Works Festival production, assisting in the
staged reading of The Confederates by
Suzanne Bradbeer.
Amy Billroth-MacLurg as Lucy Steele and Robyn Grahn as
Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility.
Livermore Shakespeare Festival 2015
Heather Michele Lawler
(MFA Acting 2018)
This summer Heather performed for three
months at historical Colonial Williamsburg
as a part of “The Hallam Players,” an acting troupe based on the first professional
acting company in the American colonies.
She performed the roles of Beatrice Rasponi in the classic commedia dell’arte
play, The Servant of Two Masters as well
as Player 3 in the original stage combat/
sketch comedy show, exclusive to Colonial Williamsburg, Sword Play. It was an
incredible professional experience mixing
her love of performing with her love of
educating and history.
MFA Scenic Design
Trevor Frederiksen
(MFA Scenic Design 2016)
Trevor served as the props master for the
summer season at Creede Repertory Theatre in Creede, Colorado. 2015 marked
the 50th season at Creede Repertory Theatre and Trevor worked on a total of six
shows, including Our Town, August Osage
County, and Good on Paper.
Charlie Spillers (MFA Acting 2018)
In a spring production of All My Sons in
Orange County CA, Charlie played the
role of Chris Keller, an experience he calls
“invaluable” to his training and career.
Charlie Spillers in All My Sons at the Attic Community Theatre.
Photo by Jennifer Owens
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
Good on Paper, Creede Repertory Theatre 2015.
Property design by Trevor Frederiksen.
Photo by John Gary Brown
23
MFA Lighting Design
MFA Costume Design
Max Archimedes Levitt & Caitlin Tuten
(MFA Costume Design & Technology
2016)
Both Max and Caitlin worked at the Long
Lake Camp for the Arts in upstate New
York during the summer of 2015. They
were each responsible for designing five
shows, while stitching for all thirty that
were in production during their tenure. On
top of that, they taught classes in stage
make-up and were responsible for hair/
make-up for nine different productions.
Marc Vital
(MFA Costume Design & Technology
2016)
At the Tibbits Opera House in Coldwater,
Michigan, Marc was one of three designers on staff to create and build costumes
for six shows. Marc’s assignments were
Peter Pan and Alone Together. Despite
limited budgets and resources, the productions garnered many accolades from
the community and production company
alike, resulting in a job offer for next summer.
Spamalot at Long Lake Camp for the Arts 2015. Costume
design by Max Archimedes Levitt. Photo by Jeoff Bauer
24
Gretchen Sophia Halle (MFA Costume
Design 2017) worked at the Summer Theatre of New Canaan in Connecticut, with
UMKC alumni Lauren Gaston (MFA Costume Design 2014). Ms. Halle served not
only as the assistant costume designer to
Ms. Gaston, but was also wardrobe supervisor and lead dresser on the production. Their production of Legally Blonde
was nominated for Best Costume Design
through Broadway World.
Peter Pan at Tibbits Opera House 2015.
Costume design by Marc Vital.
Kris Kirkwood
(Lighting Design 2016)
This summer Kris designed The True Story of the Wolf for Paul Mesner Puppets.
He also designed two shows for the KC
Fringe Festival: A Funny Thing Happened
on the Way to the Deathstar, and The
Georgette Show. In addition to his design
work Kris was involved with two professional internships. The first was with XS
Lighting, where he built, installed and configured a 3D lighting visualization system
called ESP Vision, allowing for ighting designers to build and cue a show in virtual
space. The second internship was for an
architectural lighting designer, working on
projects running the spectrum from hotels
to museums to interactive dioramas
Ethan Newman
(MFA Lighting Design 2017)
Ethan’s busy summer of 2015 was spent
at the Forestburgh Playhouse in Forestburgh, New York. Working as lighting
designer and master electrician, his season included Damn Yankees, Young Frankenstein, Oliver!, The Music Man, 42nd
Street, The Fantasticks, and his favorite
design of the summer, Driving Miss Daisy.
Each two-week run also included an original cabaret and a children’s production of
Shrek, the Musical, which Ethan adapted
to the plot of each mainstage production.
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
workshop for four days and then peround esign
formed for the community. The festival
also included a workshop with Sarah Ruhl
Jon Robertson & Jason Bauer
and a staged reading of her newest work,
(MFA Sound Design 2016)
The Oldest Boy, followed by a talk-back.
Jon and Jason worked together on a piece The winning play received a full producfor the KC Fringe Festival called Compan- tion at Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicaions. In the play featuring performances
go, Illinois, where Afton served as stage
by Jason and UMKC alumna Manon Halmanager.
liburton, Jon composed a recording that
Jordan Kruis (MFA Stage Management
acted as a third character in the play – a
2016)
television set that communicated with the
Jordan spent the summer of 2015 at the
actors and drove the action.
Hope Summer Repertory Theatre in Holland, Michigan. He served as stage manJae Shanks (MFA Sound Design 2017)
ager for Smokey Joe’s Café and assistant
Jae had a busy summer in 2015, working
on five different KC Fringe Festival shows.
Her sound design for the devised piece
heatre istory
Self-Ease from the spring of 2015 carried
over into a summer run at Fringe. She
ramaturgy
laywriting
also worked on several pieces performed
at the Unicorn theatre, including Bond and
The Snake that Stole the Flower.
Michelle Stelting (MA Theatre History
2015)
tage anagement Participating in the 2015 Kansas City
Fringe Festival, Michelle directed a new
work called Flicker, which featured a
Karl Anderson (MFA Stage Management 2017) Karl served as opera produc- talented cast, including UMKC alumnus
Wendy Bucheidt. They plan to re-mount
tion stage manager at the Brevard Music
the production in the spring at a local perCenter during the summer of 2015.
formance venue called The Buffalo Room.
Afton Earp (MFA Stage Management
2017)
Collin Vorbeck (MA Theatre History 2016)
During the summer of 2015, Afton was
Last summer, Collin performed in the
production manager for the first-ever
Heart of America Shakespeare Festival’s
Activate Midwest Play Festival on the
production ofKing Lear, playing the role of
campus of Western Michigan University
Albany. He also appeared in a Fringe play
(WMU). Plays were accepted from 118
by UMKC MA graduate Margaret Shelby
playwrights, and four were selected to
titled The Lash.
MFA S
D
MA T
D
MFA S
H
/P
M
www.umkctheatre.org Apply Online
/
MFA Technical Direction
Meg Dolben (MFA Technical Direction
2017)
Over the summer, Meg worked as technical director for The Barnstormers Theatre
in Tamworth, New Hampshire, a summer
stock theater company that was founded
in 1931 by Francis Cleveland, the youngest son of President Grover Cleveland.
She helped produce six shows (two musicals and four plays) in ten weeks and had
the opportunity to work with four different
scenic designers, two different stage managers, one resident lighting designer, and
a brilliant paint charge. She ran a crew of
two carpenters and four interns and was
charged with planning the schedules,
ordering materials, drafting construction
drawings, and overseeing all builds, loadins, and strikes. She even learned how to
drive standard in order to move scenery
with the shop’s flatbed truck and even
drove it in the Fourth of July parade.
The Hollow, The Barnstormers Theatre 2015.
Technical Direction by Meg Dolben.
Photo by Meg Dolben
25
by Ethan Zogg
U
26
MKC Theatre has strong relationships with Kansas City professional
theatres, and through a new partnership
with The Acting Company, we’re strengthening our relationship with the national
theatre scene as well.
The Acting Company, a theatre
company based out of New York City, has
toured nationally for forty years and produced high-caliber actors such as Kevin
Kline, Jesse L. Martin, Patti LuPone, and
Jeffery Wright. But recently, The Acting
Company members realized that though
they would play in cities all over the country every year, they weren’t developing
any relationships with theatres on a national scale. So they developed their new
“Consortium” model and tapped UMKC to
collaborate on the maiden voyage of the
new system.
The Acting Company playwriting meeting September, 2015. Photo by Stephanie Roberts
“The Acting Company has decided
to actually embed itself into our community to help grow and foster the development of the artists with whom they’ll be
working and performing,” says Tom Mardikes, chair of UMKC Theatre. “This pairs
perfectly with our mission to have our
students work side-by-side with professionals, actively engaging in professional
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
products.” The Consortium Model is a
three-year cycle that works like this: four
major universities are picked to be regional hubs, networking with other schools
and organizations. UMKC is a hub for the
midwest, coordinating with University of
Missouri-Columbia, Kansas University,
University of Central Missouri, and local
high schools. The first year is the planning
phase, laying out
the plans for workshops, internships,
and collaborations.
A project, based on
a theme, is picked
for the cycle to
center upon. For
UMKC’s cycle,
“assassination” is
the chosen theme,
including Shakespeare’s Julius
Caesar and a new
work being written
by Marcus Gardley
about the assassination of Malcolm
X. The second year
focuses on carrying
Ian Belknap, Margot Harley, and Tom Mardikes at The Acting Company Board Meeting,
out those plans,
September 2015
including a
providing students from all disciplines with
playwriting contest implemented by our
opportunities to work with theatre profesconsortium. Students from each hub will
submit scripts written on the theme, which sionals from all over the country. As a
hub for the midwest region, UMKC will act
will then be evaluated and workshopped,
as a conduit, not only strengthening our
eventually to be performed in the third
phase. The third year is the culmination of relationships with the professional theatre
scene in Kansas City, but with a network
the project. The Acting Company will tour
of artists all over the country. It is a truly
their two productions, and the four best
national collaboration, and in this inauguplays drawn from the consortium schools
ral cycle, UMKC is leading the charge.
will be given a public reading in New
York City where the students and faculty
of consortium schools will participate in
internships, workshops, and networking
events.
This new model puts UMKC in dialogue with the national theatre world,
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
UMKC Theatre is
a proud member
school of
UMKC Theatre is
associated with
And is an
27
Acting
Anthony Merchant (MFA Acting 2009)
Anthony recently appeared in a production
of The Tempest at the Classical Theatre
of Harlem. His performance earned him
a nomination for a prestigious AUDELCO
award for Best Supporting Actor
Anthony
Vaughn Merchant in The
Tempest,
The Classical
Theatre of
Harlem 2015.
Photo by Janaki
Gerard
28
Toccarra Cash (MFA Acting 2008)
Toccarra has been working in New York and was
recently in a production of
Brothers from the Bottom
at the Billie Holiday
Theatre. She was also
nominated for an ADELCO
award for Best Supporting
Actress.
Nick Gehlfuss (MFA Acting 2010)
Nick has had
several recurring
television roles on
programs that
include Newsroom, Shameless,
Longmire and
Murder in the First.
He is also starring
in the new NBC
series Chicago Med.
Nicole Marie Green (MFA Acting 2015)
Since graduating in May 2015, Nicole
earned her Equity card by performing at
the Unicorn Theatre in Tribes. She played
the Governess in The Turn of the Screw
with Spinning Tree Theatre, and will return
to the KCRep in The Diary of Anne Frank
as Margot. Nicole also serves as a teaching artist with The Coterie Theatre and the
Heart of America Shakespeare Festival.
Dina Thomas (MFA Acting 2011)
Dina performed in David Ives's world
premiere of Metromaniacs, directed
by Michael Kahn,
at The Shakespeare Theatre
Company in
Washington DC,
which will transfer
to the Old Globe
in San Diego for a
run starting in January 2016. She
also played Jess
in Everything You
Touch, directed by
May Adrales, at
the Contemporary Dina Thomas in Metromaniacs,
American Theater Shakespeare Theatre Company
2015. Photo by Scott Suchman
Festival.
Kelly McAndrew (MFA Acting 1998)
Kelly performed in Abundance and Men
on Boats in New York, productions which
Michael Pauley (MFA Acting 2014)
garnered NY Times Critics’ Picks. She has
Michael performed in Fly at Florida Stuappeared on Orange is the New Black, and
dio Theatre, directed by UMKC professor
recently finished filming When the Moon
Ricardo Khan. He recently filmed Pee
was Twice as Big, due out in 2016. She
Wee’s Big Holiday and has recorded over will be performing in the world premiere of
120 audio books. He currently works for a a new play by Jen Silverman called The
touring commedia dell’arte company called Moors at Yale Repertory Theatre.
Hyperion.
Rick D. Wasserman (MFA Acting 1998)
Grant Prewitt (MFA Acting 2012)
Rick has been the signature voice of AMC
Grant played Kevin in Sarah Ruhl’s Stage Network (Mad Men, The Walking Dead,
Kiss at the Guthrie and toured the United
Breaking Bad, etc.) for over a decade. He
States with The Acting Company, perform- is currently voicing Super Bowl spots for
ing Macbeth and A Connecticut Yankee in NFL Network, and is working on many
King Arthur’s Court.
video game and animation projects.
www.umkctheatre.org Apply Online
Caris Vujec (MFA Acting 1997)
The Pepper Project, created, written, executive-produced, and co-directed by Caris
Vujcec (also playing the lead role of
Pepper) has met with grateful and outstanding success thus far, having been
an Official Selection at the 2015 ITVFest,
2015 LA Femme International Film Festival, and the Bilbao Web Fest (trailer
competition). In addition, the pilot episode
won the Best Shorts Competition Award
of Excellence, Special Mention and two
IndieFest Awards (one for Cinematography, James Parsons, DP, and one for
Caris, who earned a Women's Filmmaker
Award of Excellence). Caris continues her
recurring role as Detective Campesi on
the long-running NBC hit series, Law and
Order: Special Victims Unit. An avid cyclist, Caris continues to raise money each
year for MS in the annual Bike MS Ride in
Manhattan.
Kelly Gibson (MFA Acting 2012)
Kelly is currently playing Madge in a production of Picnic at Palm Beach Dramaworks, where she also spent last winter
playing Cecile in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Her summer was spent doing a five-actor adaption of Cyrano de Bergerac at the
beloved Riverside Theatre in Iowa City, as
well as workshopping and showcasing a
new pop-style musical at Collaborative Arts
Project 21 in NYC titled Alone in the U.S.
Joseph Fournier (MFA Acting 2015)
At the Metropolitan Theatre Ensemble,
Joseph performed in the two-man show
Stones in his Pockets to open their 20152016 season.
Spencer Christensen (MFA Acting 2015)
Since graduation in May 2015, Spencer
spent a summer in Creede, Colorado, with
the Creede Repertory Theatre acting in
Guys and Dolls, Our Town, and a new play
written to celebrate the founding of the
theatre, Ghost Light. He was hired as an
assistant professor of Theatre at Lake
Superior State University in Sault Ste.
Marie, Michigan, and tasked to revise the
theatre curriculum and to create a more
effective and appropriate theatre minor.
Scenic Design
Todd Edward Ivins (MFA Scenic Design 1996)Todd Edward Ivins tells stories
through design. His work spans opera,
plays, musicals, corporate events and
newsroom sets and has been praised as
“inventive”, “cosmopolitan”, and "alluring.".
His collaborative skills, design proficiency, and breadth of knowledge have made
him a trusted member of many Broadway
design teams. Ivins’ scenic designs have
been seen at The Walnut Street Theatre
(Philadelphia), The 5th Avenue Theatre
(Seattle), Milwaukee Rep, Theatre Row
(NYC), Prince Music Theater (Philadelphia), Jewish Repertory Theater (NYC),
and The Signature Theatre (DC), amongst
others. Most recently he designed the sets
and costumes for Mirror Mirror at the
Milwaukee Ballet.
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
Todd Potter (MFA Scenic Design 1993)
Todd Potter has worked in regional theater as well as in New York. His numerous
credits include work at The Irish Repertory Theatre, Melting Pot Theatre, Naples
Players, Florida RepertoryTheatre, to
name a few. Todd also teaches at NYU’s
Tisch School of Drama, teaching fundamentals of drawing and advanced drafting.
He most recently designed the set for God
of Carnage at the Naples Players in Florida.
Charlie Corcoran (MFA Scenic Design
2001) Charlie Corcoran is working extensively in regional theatres as well as on
and off-Broadway. He has worked with
the Irish Repertory Theatre, Juilliard, The
Mark Taper Forum, New Jersey Rep, and
the Santa Fe Opera amongst others. He
received a Hewes Design Award nomination for his design for The Emperor Jones.
He most recently designed, The Marriage
of Figaro at Juilliard Opera, as well as A
Comedy of Tenors for the Cleveland Playhouse and the McCarter Theatre.
Scenic design by Charlie Corcoran for Vanya &
Sonia & Masha & Spike at the Goodman Theatre.
Photo by Liz Lauren
29
Tony Schmidt (MFA Scenic Design 1998)
Tony Schmidt has maintained an active
career working in a variety of capacities
as both a scenic designer and fine artist.
Some of these experiences have included:
a permanent installation for the Chicago
Museum of Science and Industry involving HO scaled replicas of Chicago Loop
buildings and downtown Seattle, design for
an enormous chandelier graphic for Arbor
Place Mall (Douglasville, Georgia), stage
designs for management meetings for companies such as Longaberger and Toyota,
trade show exhibits, such as ADP and Netcaddy.com, representation in the Prague
Quadrennial 1999 for his set design of
Crazy for You (directed by Ernie Williams),
and gallery showings and commissions in
Cincinnati and Chicago.
Costume Design
30
Kate R. Mincer (MFA Costume Design
2008) Kate is currently designing costumes in NYC and beyond. She recently
designed the season at Stonington Opera
House; this year she has also designed at
the New Ohio Theatre and the Northeast
Children’sTheatre Company. She also
designed the costumes for the world premiere of R J Z (Romeo & Juliet & Zombies), which was nominated for three New
York Innovative Theatre Awards. Kate is
currently co-designing two upcoming productions for the award-winning New York
City Children’s Theatre, and is working
on a production of A Midsummer Night’s
Dream for spring 2016.
Whitney Locher (MFA
Costume Design and
Technology 2005)
Whitney lives in New York
on famed 42nd Street. Her
recent Off-Broadway credits
include Into The Woods at
the Roundabout Theatre
and Two Gentlemen of Verona for Theatre For a New
Into the Woods, Roundabout Theatre 2015.
Audience. She also
Costumes by Whitney Locher.
designed For the Last Time, a new muPhoto by Sara Krulwich
sical on Theatre Row, and Eve for The
Aaron Chvatal (MFA Costume Design
Neo-Political Cowgirls, presented at the
Gym at Judson. Currently, Whitney is pre- & Technology 2013) currently resides in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. He recently inparing Measure for Measure for the Long
terned as costume design assistant in the
Wharf Theatre in Connecticut.
Guthrie costume shop for their production
of To Kill a Mockingbird. He also designed
Kelly Kasper (MFA Costume Design &
costumes for productions at Park Square
Technology 2009) Kelly has been living
Theatre (4000 Miles and Murder for Two),
and working in NYC for the past 5 years.
The Penumbra Theatre Company (Detroit
She has worked on Broadway's Cinderel’67), The Rose Ensemble (Singing for
la, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,
Freedom), and Lakeshore Players (The
and at the Metropolitan Opera.
Mystery of Edwin Drood). Twice a year,
he travels to Lynchburg, Virginia, to coordinate costumes for Opera on the James
(Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica, La Voix
Humane, Bon Appétit, Little Women, La
Bohème, The Marriage of Figaro, and
Carmen this November). This February,
he was a featured artist in Gallery 92 West
in his hometown of Fremont, Nebraska.
There, he showcased costume renderings, finished costumes, hats constructed
from scratch, and panels featuring Japanese dye techniques. After great demand,
Romeo and Juliet and Zombies, New Ohio Theatre 2015.
he taught two classes on Arashi Shibori,
Costumes by Kate Mincer. Photo by Hunter Canning
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
and one class on the Serti silk painting
technique. During the summer, he manages the costume shop of the Castleton
Opera Festival, where he also designed
a production of Our Town for their 2015
season.
Aaron Chvatal exhibition at Gallery 92West.
Photo by Aaron Chvatal
and projections for The Effect of Gamma
Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds for
KCAT, projections for a tour of The Great
Divorce, a touring project of The Music Man
with Shirley Jones, and several corporate
events across the country.
Rocco DiSanti (MFA Lighting 2008)
Rocco was promoted to production manager of Shen Wei Dance Arts and continued his work with that company through
last year. Additionally, he has recently
worked with Crossroads and did the
lighting and projection design for Lift at
59E59 and his designs were mentioned in
“Lighting and Sound America.” He also did
the projection design for Fly with artistic
director Ricardo Khan in Sarasota, which
won five local awards, including best set
design, and projections including the
Lighting Design
Jeff Cady (MFA Lighting 1996)
Last year was one of Jeff’s busiest yet,
as he designed four shows for the KC
Rep, including lights and projections for A
Christmas Carol, lights for Sticky Traps,
and projections for Hair, Retrospective and
the new workshop production of Stillwater.
He spent the summer on tour with J-Lo
with her AKA tour as the projections programmer and media coordinator for Nick
Mitello and VER. He also spent several
weeks on the road with the Jason Aldean
crew and his Burn it Down tour in a similar
position. Other designs included lights
video aspect of the show. Rocco also
worked on Desire with The Acting Company. His work teams with set designers to
help them realize their projection designs.
Thanks to his work on Desire, he was
recommended to design Incident at Vichy
for Signature Theatre in New York next
month.
Brandon Clark (BA 2013)
Continuing his professional work with
DSS, Inc. in Kansas City as a lighting
tech, Brandon served as the LD/L1 on
several notable shows around their client
NASCAR, including an “awards show” in
Vegas called NASCAR After the Lap and
a live-televised promotional event called
Bash at the Beach for Fox Sports 1. DSS
also allowed him the opportunity to fill-in
as Matt Gumniski’s lighting director on the
Neon Trees’s summer tour for
their last seven dates around
the Northeastern states in July.
Following his work with DSS,
Brandon was offered a position at DK Production Design in
Chicago, as junior designer and
manager of their pre-visualization studio called Creative Spaces. He assists senior designers
on projects, and goes out on
the road as a lighting and media director. In his first show, he
served as the lighting director for
Missy Elliott’s headlining performance at Bestival in the UK.
Robert Karma Robinson, Michael Pauley, Sean Patrick Hopkins and Jordan
Bellow in Fly. Projection design by Rocco Disanti.
Photo by Matthew Holler
www.umkctheatre.org Apply Online
31
David Hardy (MFA Lighting & Technical
Direction 2002)
David is currently the assistant professor of theatre, set and lighting Design,
Lipscomb University TN (2010-present),
the former Assistant Professor of Tech
Theatre/Lighting Design, Coe College IA
(2007-2010), and the former opera production manager/resident lighting designer for the University of Memphis School
of Music TN (2004-2007). He is also the
resident lighting designer for the Blackbird
Theatre in Nashville TN and designed the
lights on the premiere of Roger’s Version,
Hairspray, Pacific Overtures, Amadeus and Red for the Blackbird Theatre in
Nashville TN.
Sharareh Abvabi (BA 2014)
After only a year in Los Angeles, Shara
has acquired quite a resume. She designed lights for an opera at Pepperdine
University which led to work at the Malibu
Playhouse designing God of Carnage
directed by Gramme Clifford. After that
production, she was offered a position
of resident lighting designer for the playhouse, which led to more design work
and earned her the position of production
manager. Over the course of six months
she designed lights and managed shows
for Ed Asner, Mark Rydell, Ed Weinberg,
Jimmy Dore, Kathrine Ross, Sam Elliot,
Dan Lauria, Ray Abruzzo, Wendy Malick,
and most recently, Dick Van Dyke which
will be featured in his official documentary
and The Today Show.
32
Steve Dubay (MFA Lighting 1999)
Steve is currently the assistant lighting
director at CNN in Atlanta GA, a freelance
lighting designer based in Atlanta GA,
and lighting programmer for movies and
television. He started the year dimmer
teching and programming for the Hunger
Games: Mockingjay (parts 1 and 2) and
continued with Marvel’s Ant-Man, Taken
3, Goosebumps and Insurgent. Television
work includes the series, The Family Feud
and Rectify, episode 17, S2 of the Originals, and the 2014 BET Hip Hop Awards.
He has also designed lights for numerous
installation art exhibitions and in February
he programmed LED sculptures for Grimanesa Amoros in NYC. He had worked
on this installation in Madrid, Beijing and
Hong Kong, Tel Aviv, Mexico City, and Sao
Paolo, Brazil.
Sound Design
Kristian Ball (MFA 2007)
Since leaving Lehigh in July of last year,
Kristian had a busy year in design, engineering, consultation and academic work.
He designed sound and composed for
nine productions, including Pennsylvania
Shakespeare Festival’s The Foreigner
and their WillPower touring production
of Julius Caesar, Allentown Public Theatre’s True West and The Jungle Book,
and Touchstone Theatre’s world premier
Journey from the East. He also exhibited a
sound installation piece titled Water Waste
at Arizona State University, and is currently lecturer in Sound Art for the School of
Art at Muhlenberg College.
Robert Bowen (MFA Lighting 2008)
Robert is a freelance lighting designer
based in Texas. For the past two years,
he has also been adjunct instructor for the
University of North Texas as well as working toward a film MFA. He was always
interested in directing film even while he
was here. His lighting design for Big River
produced by the Culture House at the
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
in Kansas City recently won best lighting
for a musical from the International Music and Entertainment Arts Association
(IMEA).
Kristian Derek Ball
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
Eric Webster (MFA Sound Design 1998)
After spending 10 years as the A1 on
multiple Broadway tours, Eric settled into
Kansas City and concentrated on the
consulting and contracting markets. In that
time he designed or supervised AV installations across the country including Major
League baseball and football stadiums,
a NASCAR track, Federal Reserve bank
and numerous churches, schools and
theaters. He eventually returned to theater
as the sound head for Starlight Theater
for five years before taking over as head
carpenter in 2015. He is currently the
associate electrician for the national tour
of C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. Eric
is a proud 23-year member of the IATSE
and serves as the training coordinator for
Local 3
Ryan Hall (MFA Sound 2012)
Ryan currently resides in New York City
and is a proud member of IATSE Local 1
and the Theatrical Sound Designers and
Composers Association. Most recently he
provided production audio for PEARL at
the Koch Theatre in the Lincoln Center.
Joe Concha (MFA Sound Design 2012)
In 2015, Joe worked as a contract sound
designer with Vicarious Visions, a video
game developer for Activision-Blizzard. He
designed, implemented, and debugged
audio for Skylanders SuperChargers,
which just came out in September. He
also managed the entire dialogue pipeline,
including localization in 11 languages from
around the world, totaling around 200,000
individual assets.
Glen Dunzweiler (MFA Sound Design
2003)
After recently leaving academia (CSU San
Bernardino), Glen moved to LA to focus
on the business side of entertainment. He
is currently shopping a children's TV show
pilot called Musical Robot and is working
on getting a distributor for his documentary yHomeless?.
Technical Direction
David Hawkinson (MFA Technical Direction 2010)
David has been employed as an IATSE
829 Scenic Artist in NYC for the past
five years. He worked on three seasons
of HBO's Boardwalk Empire, as well as
Show Me a Hero and Louie. He is now
working on HBO's upcoming show Vinyl.
Stage Management
MUSICAL ROBOT TV plate. Photo by Glen Dunzweiler
Dan Warneke (MFA Sound Design 2012)
Dan is the audio engineer at the New Theatre Restaurant in Overland Park KS, one
of the nation’s most successful dinner theatres, which produces five productions per
year including plays and Broadway-style
musicals. Each production utilizes
Sennheiser wireless microphone systems
outfitted with Countryman B6 lavalieres.
The vocal sound system contains
seven rows of time-aligned speakers
placed throughout the venue to deliver
sound reinforcement to the audience.
Kelly Schmidli (MFA Stage Management 2015)
During the summer of 2015, Kelly served
as production manager for the Arkansas
Shakespeare Festival, followed by work
at Starlight Theatre on their production of
Mary Poppins. She will continue her work
in the field of stage management on multiple productions at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City throughout the 2015-16 season,
including productions of Don Giovanni and
Rusalka.
April Brewer (MFA Stage Management
2015)
April spent the summer of 2015 working
at The New Theatre Restaurant on their
production of The Addams Family. She
followed this up with work on the KC Rep
production of Blueprints to Freedom in the
fall.
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
33
Dramaturgy/
Playwrighting
Andrea Anderson (MA 2012) Andrea is
working on her Ph.D. dissertation at Texas
Tech University in Lubbock. In August she
presented a paper on the Dramaturgy Debut panel at the Asssociation for Theatre
in Higher Education conference in Montreal and was elected graduate student
representative for ATHE’s dramaturgy
focus group.
Tanya Barber (MA 2010) Tanya lives in
Seattle and is married to Brian Dugas.
She works in the marketing department of
Taproot Theatre Company. Her play, Chad
and Tara Save the World, was produced
there in fall 2014.
Katrina Darden Bondari (MA 2005)
Katrina teaches at Trinity University and
Alamo College in San Antonio, Texas. She
has published an article and several book
reviews on classical Greek theatre.
34
Amanda Boyle (MA 2012)
Amanda will complete her Ph.D. at the
University of Kansas in May 2016. She
has taught several theatre courses in the
department there while also working as
resident dramaturg at the Unicorn Theatre. In 2014-15 she presented papers at
the annual conferences of LMDA, ASTR,
and ATHE.
Vanessa Campagna (MA 2012)
Vanessa completed her Ph.D. with distinction at the University of Missouri-Columbia
and is now assistant professor of theatre
at Monmouth College. She has presented
papers at regional and national conferences. In August she directed Seussical
the Musical at Gladstone Theatre in the
Park.
David Coley (MA 2008)
David earned his Ph.D. at Louisiana State
University and now is assistant professor
and director of theatre at St. Gregory’s
University in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Ben Fleer (MA 2014)
Ben is pursuing Ph.D. studies at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Alyson Germinder (MA 2015)
Alyson had a busy summer after completing her MA in May: Dramaturgy Fellow
at The John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts in Washington DC, participant in the National New Play Network’s
Dramaturgy Intensive, and beginning a
new position as literary manager of The
Midwest Dramatists Center. She is also
house manager and dramaturg for Kansa
City Actors Theatre and continues as dramaturg for Heart of America Shakespeare
Festival.
Kristin Janke Henning (MA 2013)
Kristin completed her MA in 2014 and has
been teaching at the University of Central
Missouri in Warrensburg. She reviews
Kansas City theatre for KCMetropolis.org.
www.umkctheatre.org Apply Online
Bobbie Jeffrey (MA 2009)
Bobbie is founding chair of Theatre Arts
at Calvary Bible College in Kansas City,
where she most recently directed Over the
River and Through the Woods in October
2015.
Saejoon Oh (MA 2000)
Saejoon teaches modern drama at
Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Korea. He recently directed David Mamet’s
Speed the Plow in Seoul. He published
three articles this year on Choe Seunghee (known in the West as Sai Shoki), the
pioneer of modern dance in Korea.
Rachel Mastin Stanley (MA 2007)
Rachel is assistant director of the Honors
Program at Missouri Southern State
University in Joplin.
Marianna Vogt (MA 2007)
Marianna is married to Ben Bschor and
lives in London. She teaches regularly for
the National Youth Theatre and continues
performing cabaret, while working primarily as drama and movement therapist with
traumatized children at the Royal School
of Speech and Drama.
by Jamie Alderiso
T
aylor Marun is a 2011 alumna of UMKC with an MFA
in Stage Management. Since her graduation, she has been
active in New York. Taylor talks about her recent career developments: “I have been a member of AEA for a few years now. I
am currently finishing up an Off-Broadway show, In Bed with Roy
Cohn. Following this show, I will be going to Roanoke, Virginia, to stage manage 42nd Street at the Mill Mountain Theatre.”
Taylor is based in New York, but also takes work in other markets around the country. Within the past year, she has worked on
several other Off-Broadway shows as well as readings, galas, and concerts.
In terms of Taylor’s
own personal view of stage
management, she believes
that the best way to learn
the art is through a ton of
“hands on” experience.
She reflects fondly on her
days in Kansas City. “I was
able to do many shows, including working with some
companies in the KC area.
I learned a lot from working with professional SMs
on these shows.” Taylor
champions these opportunities as invaluable assets
to her professional resume;
through acquiring a good
Taylor Marun working in New York.
amount of experience in
Photo by Sadie Desantis
graduate school, she was
able to find work quickly.
She speaks of her confidence on going into her first
professional interview after recieving her degree. “The Program
helped shape me into the stage manager I am today. It gave me
some good foundations to build on in my career. I got that job
by the way.” Taylor also received many more job offers after that
first interview; she continues to remain an active and passionate
stage manager.
Sadie DeSantis,
who oversees the program, speaks of its inherent value. “The Stage
Management program
is a perfect gateway to
accelerate a professional
career in two years. It
gives students the opportunity to work side by
side with professional
stage managers in all
forms of performance
including: theatre, opera,
dance, and corporate
events.” Sadie was also
Taylor’s classmate in
graduate school. Both
alumni continue to serve
as examples of the highTaylor Marun working in New York.
est professionalism in
Photo by Sadie Desantis
their field. Both of them
acquired an immense
knowledge of their art
form.
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
35
by Andrew Hagerty
T
36
he Master of Arts in Theatre
program at the University of Missouri–Kansas City offers many outlets, both
academic and artistic. Some students
choose a focus centered on playwriting,
or supplement their theatre history studies with playwriting classes. Instructor of
playwriting Frank Higgins, whose play
Black Pearl Sings! was one of the top ten
plays produced in the 2009-10 season,
aims to provide those who take his class
with the tools to make their work both
personal and producible. Higgins states
that the most basic goal of his teaching
is to “help people discover how to make
themselves better writers,” and to realize
that, whatever the subjective approaches
to how one writes, “there are objective
tools to work on.” He compares the work
of the playwright to that of an architect:
creativity is important, but the structure
must stand. The etymology of the word
playwright is essential, “Yes, it’s an art, but
it’s also a craft,” Higgins says. “Picasso
invented Cubism, but prior to that he could
paint a portrait that was recognizably you.”
This is the crux of Higgins’ teaching, and
what Master of Arts students interested in
playwriting can expect. Students learn to
“break past their insecurities and find the
approaches that tend to work,” as Higgins
puts it, benefitting from his expertise in the
professional field.
Many students have found success
as playwrights following in Higgins’ footsteps. Stephanie Demaree (MA 2014)
says, “Thanks to Frank’s class, I can now
call myself a published playwright.”
Higgins recommended Demaree for a writing commission with a local middle school,
and that play, Gran’s Guide to Stop an
Ogre (Also Works for Witches and Bullies), was subsequently published by Pioneer Drama. Her play Teacher’s Lounge
received a workshop production at UMKC.
Demaree also competed in Kansas City’s
Project Playwright competition, coming in
second to another former Higgins student
Cynthia Hardeman.
Hardeman concurs that Higgins’
teaching provided clarity of focus. “I’d
always written stories but once I sat in
Frank’s class I knew that all along, I had
been writing plays.” She says. “I can’t help
the bias, Frank and his playwriting class
changed my life and I’m forever grateful
to him for recognizing and nurturing my
talent.” Her play Truth Stands has been
produced in several cities across the
country. “Practically every opportunity I
have had to see my work produced has
been through Frank’s class,” Demaree
says. Hardeman elaborates that Higgins
“not only taught but showed in his actions
that theatre is all about making connections and collaborating with others. He
introduced students to the local community theatre process.” Higgins also has
dozens of students and former students
who have produced work for Kansas City
Fringe Festival. Two students, Nick Sawin
and Andrew Hagerty, have had ten-minute
plays selected for readings at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Region Five, with Sawin’s advancing
to the national Kennedy Center Festival in
Washington D.C
Higgins has had many students of
diverse backgrounds in the fifteen years
he has taught playwriting at UMKC. Some
are pursuing their MAs, but some MFA
candidates, and even faculty members
have been enriched by his courses. Higgins calls storytelling a part of human
nature, and that knowing the practical
aspects of playwriting can be invaluable:
“The play is the thing and all other disciplines help to tell the story.”
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
Frank Higgins. Photo by Dr. Felicia Londré
by Collin Vorbeck
W
ho says you can’t go home
again? Scott Stackhouse has returned to
one of the first stops on his theatrical journey. But where he once roamed the halls
as an undergraduate student, Stackhouse
now bears the title of Assistant Professor of
Theatre in Voice and Acting for the Professional Actor Training Program at UMKC
Theatre. And after years of paying his
dues by adjunct teaching at colleges and
universities across the city, he finds himself
in a place that will allow him to focus on
strengthening the graduate program and to
prepare MFA actors for professional vocal
careers.
After receiving his MFA in acting
from the University of California–Los Angeles in 1999, Stackhouse returned to Kansas
City and worked at a number of schools in
the area before landing a full-time position
at the University of Missouri–Kansas City.
He worked primarily with undergraduates,
but also began running six-week blocks
of breath work for the MFA actors, in the
Linklater technique he’d studied at UCLA.
This work led to Stackhouse working as
vocal coach for university productions,
which led to more work with the graduate
department on dialects and vocal training.
Following the departure of Erika Bailey to
Scott Stackhouse
www.umkctheatre.org Apply Online
Harvard University, UMKC
Theatre conducted a national
search and Stackhouse was
chosen to fill the graduate position permanently.
“It’s bittersweet,” Stackhouse says of saying goodbye
to his undergraduate duties.
“So much of my time was
spent helping students balance
theatre work with their other
studies, and there was something exciting and rewarding
in that.” He is looking forward
to the change in perspective:
“Now, my focus is on the graduate student whose life IS the
theatre. It is more demanding
for them; they just “go” all day.
How do they get through the
day? How can I help that process?” Stackhouse has three
focuses in the immediate future
for the program. The first is
the overall health and well-being of the students. “I want
them to take the best-possible
care of themselves, physically
and emotionally. Resting their
voices, using them correctly.”
37
His second focus is to emphasize the need for what he
calls “athletic” voices. “Contemporary work sometimes
leads to disengaged or partially-attentive voices. Our
work needs to be crisp, not on its heels.” The third focus
is one that other programs, and even students themselves, often overlook: voice-over work. “Our third-year
actors have always left with a professional demo reel.
Last year, I started in-depth animation voice-over work
with the second-year actors. The goal is to develop these
techniques over the course of their time with us, and to
tailor the work according to the abilities of the individual
student. This is a great way to use what we teach in the
classroom to get professional work after graduation.”
Stackhouse is also excited to shape his own style
of teaching voice: “So much of what we do as professors
is based on how others have taught it to us. What will
my version of vocal training be? How can I make it
Shipwrecked! directed by Scott Stackhouse.
Courtesy of Seaside REP.
Photo by Nikki Hedrick
unique and original to me?” Now that he is no longer
dividing his time between graduate voice work and undergraduate directing and acting work, he’ll have the opportunity to give the program his own special stamp. However
that special stamp manifests itself, Stackhouse will certainly strengthen the foundation of the graduate program and
guide its graduates into a successful future.
38
Shipwrecked! directed by Scott Stackhouse.
Courtesy of Seaside REP.
Photo by Nikki Hedrick
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
by David Ruis
F
or the past eleven years, The
Kansas City Fringe Festival has given
KC artists the opportunity to produce and
showcase their work in a theatrical stew
that includes: theatre, spoken word, film,
music, dance, comedy, and burlesque.
Fringe delivers to an array of audiences,
providing a variety of entertainment that
can appeal to anyone’s particular performance taste. There is a show for everyone. Inspired by the Edinburgh Festival in
Scotland, the festival gathers a menagerie
of artists and art supporters, celebrating
theatrical artistry at its truest, purest form.
The Fringe Festival has also given ample
opportunities to University of Missouri-Kansas City theatre students.
Jonathan Robertson (MFA Sound
Design 2016) and Jason Bauer (MFA
Sound Design 2016), along with Jason
Ludlow created the “sound play” Companions. Describing the play, Robertson states
that “The main character is the sound of a
television, which we learn is actually a sonic projection of the wife’s internal thoughts.”
Robertson also directed and did the sound
design for the piece. This was Robertson’s
second year in the Fringe Festival.
Manon Halliburton and Jason Bauer in
Companions, KC Fringe Festival 2015.
Photo by Darren Toliver
He feels that it is a “great place for artists to
practice and perform what the artists love,
art.” As for Bauer, the most important thing
about KC Fringe is that, “It allows artists to
create original pieces or to produce known
pieces that the artist loves. It is a platform
that is unbiased and inexpensive to work
from and gives opportunities for artists to
learn.”
Margaret Shelby (MA Theatre
History 2015) and a few friends decided
to take the risk and self-produce their own
scripts about art and art-making for KC
Fringe. The Art is a Lie, an evening of short
plays, was executed at Phosphor Studios.
Shelby’s own play, The Lash, was directed
by UMKC graduate student Elizabeth Bettendorf Bowman and featured many UMKC
students and alums. Shelby sees the value
of KC Fringe for an artist. There is no excuse not to be a part of it. “Seriously, there
is very little that can prevent you from being
a part of Fringe. We self-produced, and did
so by launching a very successful Kickstarter campaign to raise money. Fringe provides a venue for the most shoe-string of
efforts, and you really have to take advantage of that.”
University of Missouri- Kansas City Theatre Department
39
Lauren Pope, Margaret Shelby, and Chris Roady in
The Snake That Stole the Flower.
KC Fringe Festival 2015.
Photo by Mary Donaldson
Love Me Tinder, KC Fringe Festival 2015.
Photo by Jill Toyoshiba
Jae Shanks (MFA Sound Design 2017) sound designed
five shows for the festival: Love Me Tinder, The Penis Monologues,
Bond: a soldier and his dog, Self-Ease, and The Snake that Stole the
Flower. Shanks was also the assistant stage manager for Lovesick.
For Shanks, the festival was all about adapting. In designing her
show, Shank focused on keeping it simple to run and simply augmenting the show as a whole. “Overall, I learned so much about my
own capabilities and ideas and how to adapt to the needs of a show
in three hours of tech (sometimes less!). I am glad that I was a part
of such an interesting experience seeing crazy theatre. It’s a fantastic
feeling to be a part of such collaborative effort.”
The KC Fringe Festival continues to grow year after year, providing platforms for original work and stellar talent, combining artists
and audiences together in a community of support and celebration
for the love of theatre.
40
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Vanessa Severo in The Penis Monologues.
KC Fringe Festival 2015.
Photo by Roy Inman
by Andrew Hagerty
W
dramaturg for the Missouri Repertory
hat is a dramaturg? Curators’
Theatre for 22 years, says that UMKC’s
Professor of Theatre Felicia Hardison LonMA program trains its students to “create
dré heads up the Master of Arts program
a richer experience” both for those who
at the University of Missouri-Kansas City
work on a production and those who view
and prepares her students to be scholars
it.
of theatre history and dramaturgs. Author
Alyson Germinder (MA 2015) is
of fourteen books and scores of scholarthe current literary manager with Midwest
ly articles, Londré says dramaturgs can
Dramatists’ Center and works professionfunction as the “conscience of the play,”
ally asa dramaturg throughout Kansas
and instead of focusing on particular deCity. She sees dramaturgy as “a powersign or performance aspects, are able to
ful and necessary part of any theatrical
offer a wider view of the world within the
process.” For Germinder, the work of the
play. Londré says many directors are now
dramaturg is all about the audience: “I
“clamoring” for dramaturgs and
my time to making the
Kansas City theatres
information I collect for
in particular look to
each show as accessithe MAs of UMKC.
ble as possible for any
Graduates of the MA
audience member that
program have studmay come in contact
ied extensively under
with the production.”
Londré and work
This is in keeping with
as dramaturgs for
Londré’s statement that
UMKC productions
theatre history is the
and co-productions.
“absolute foundation”
Several of these
of professional theatritheatres, including
cal productions. While
the Coterie and the
Germinder states that
Unicorn, have hired
“dramaturgs have to
graduates to serve
constantly fight for their
as staff dramaturgs
place in the room,” Lonand literary mandré maintains that it is
agers. Londré, who At Home at the Zoo at Kansas City Actors Theatre.
vital to “learn the facts
served as
Photo by Mike Tsai
Missouri’s Campus for the Arts
first” before branching off into theory-based studies. This is why even MFA
students take at least two of Londré’s
courses, to solidify that foundation and
strengthen their artistic pursuits. And, as
Londré points out, many MFA candidates
choose to take additional courses, because the knowledge of where theatre
has been is as important as figuring out
where it is going.
Germinder says that “One of the
hallmark traits of dramaturgs is our curiosity.” As Londré points out, the MA program
is structured to be flexible in tailoring to
students’ particular interests. MA students
are encouraged to branch out into various
literary forms, Londré says, “to help them
find their strengths” and enhance the impact of their theses. As Germinder says,
“You have the ability to make the MA
program unique and applicable to your
interests – and you don’t find that at every
university.”
The Gin Game at Kansas City Actors Theatre.
Photo by Brian Paulette
41
s
2015-2016
Season
2015/16
THEATRE SCHOLARS
Lee & Nadine Marts Scholarship
Bill Baker, Jr. Scholarship
Sandra Lopez
Baker Thomas Scholarship
Danny Fleming
Jeanne McIlrath Finter
Memorial Scholarship in
Costume
Gretchen Halle
n
ble)
Mariem S. Diaz, Maya Jackson, Joshua Gilman,
and Caroline Vuchetich in The Learned Ladies.
UMKC Theatre 2015.
Photo by Brian Paulette
ions
The Mary Ellen Fowler Award
Fund
Caitlin Tuten
Gretchen Halle
Patricia A. McIlrath Scholarship
Afton Earp
Patricia Crowe Morgan
Acting Internship
Edwin Brown III
Michael Thayer
Morgan-Oppenstein
Acting Award
Mariem Diaz
Joshua Gilman
Caroline Vuchetich
Jeanne McIlrath Finter
Acting Award
2th
Joshua Gilman
The Darker Face of the Earth
Benefit Scholarship
e
Cast of The Rocky Horror Show,
UMKC Theatre 2015.
Photo by Brian Paulette
c play
Max Levitt
Three Sisters Benefit
Scholarship
Morgan Lea Palmer
Noises Off Benefit Scholarship
Margaret Dolben
AWARDS ADMINISTERED by
THE UMKC COLLEGE of
ARTS & SCIENCES
e Trial
58]
Francis J. Cullinan &
Baker S. Smith, Jr. Scholarship
Amanda Davison
Dalton Pierce
nakin)
Jason Bauer
Ingram Family Scholarship Fund
Nicole Jaja
The Honorable Karen McCarthy
Scholarship for Theatre
Caroline Allander
Jeannette Nichols Scholarship
Elizabeth Still
SCS Scholarship
Jon Robertson
Gretel Sigmund Scholarship
in Theatre
Glenn Linder
William & Fay Sollner Scholarship
Elizabeth Sampley
Douglas Enderle Honorary
Scholarship in Theatre Design
Paige Beltowski
Richard J. Stern Foundation
Scholarship for Theatre Arts Costume
Caitlin Tuten
The Kelly Award for Theatre
Nils Emerson
THE NEW THEATRE GUILD
SCHOLARSHIpS
Dr. Patricia McIlrath Scholarship
Grethen Halle
MFA, Costume Design
The New Theatre Guild
Richard Carrothers & Dennis D.
Hennessy Scholarship
Michael Thayer,
MFA Acting
The Virginia Kelley Scholarship
James Alderiso, MA
The Julia Boutross Scholarship
Jamie Leonard, BA Theatre
The Michelle Bushman Scholarship
Mariem Diaz, MFA Acting
pRIvATELy-AWARDED
SCHOLARSHIpS
The William & Jo Ann Sullivan
Fellowship
Maya Jackson
Richard J. Stern FellowshipCostume
Marc Vital
Richard J. Stern FellowshipSound
Jessica Shanks
John D. Ezell Design Scholarship
Cast of Pericles, UMKC Theatre 2015.
Photo by Brian Paulette
Tzu-Ching Cheng
Mark Exline
Trevor Frederiksen
Tristan James
Sandra Lopez
THE HALL FAMILy
FOUNDATION FELLOWS
Jason Bauer
Paige Beltowski
Shannon Barondeau
Joshua Christ
Margaret Dolben
Afton Earp
Mark Exline
Katherine Gehrlein
Jessica Hawkins
Nicole Jaja
Tristan James
Ashley Kok
Kaleb Krahn
Jacob Lensing
Glenn Linder
Morgan Lea Palmer
Jon Robertson
Elizabeth Sampley
Andrew Steele
Adam Terry
Caitlin Tuten
Tzu-Ching Cheng
Cast of Freedom Rider, UMKC Theatre 2015.
Photo by Brian Paulette
21st
ve
Pictured Top to Bottom:
Nicole Marie
Laura Spencer
JacobsChristensen,
and Spencer
Christensen
Green & Jamie Dufault, Frank Lillig &
Murphy,Theatre
Margaret 2015.
Shelby.Photo
in The Korrie
Liar, UMKC
All Photos by Brian Paulette
by Brian Paulette
re.org
KC Rep and UMKC Theatre work in partnership to prepare talented young artists for a future
in theatre. Financial assistance from generous donors is essential to sustain UMKC’s acclaimed
theatre training programs.
If you are interested in contributing or in establishing a scholarship, please contact Jason Elliott
at [email protected], 816.235.5776.
Cast of Caucasian Chalk Circle, UMKC
Theatre 2015. Photo by Brian Paulette
Master of Fine Arts Theatre
Design and Technology: Technology
Acting and Directing: Acting
Stage Management
Sadie DeSantis
816-235-2783
[email protected]
Carla Noack
816-235-5207
[email protected]
Technical Direction
Chuck Hayes
816-235-2772
[email protected]
Theodore Swetz
816-235-2858
[email protected]
PROGRAMS
Design and Technology: Design
Costume
Lindsay W. Davis
816-235-6023
[email protected]
Lighting
Victor En Yu Tan
816-235-2767 or 816-213-8826 (cell)
[email protected]
Master of Arts Theatre
Dr. Felicia Hardison Londré
816-235-2781
[email protected]
Academic Advisor
Cindy Stofiel
816-235-6683
[email protected]
Scenic
John Ezell Gene Friedman
816-674-7333
816-235-2733
[email protected] [email protected]
Sound
Tom Mardikes
[email protected]
A
pply Online!
www.umkctheatre.org
Greg Mackender
[email protected]
Relay Missouri at 1-800-735-2966 (TT) or
1-800-735-2466 (VIOCE)
Spring 2016
Training News