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Guest Professionals
Every year, students at the SFA School of Theatre benefit from fresh and diverse perspectives of active professionals that visit our campus from all across the nation.
In 2007-08:
In a dynamic workshop, our students learned about the professional audition process from Lewis Magruder, who coordinates casting as associate producing artistic director of The Acting Company, the Tony Award-honored classical touring theatre company based in New York City. In a second workshop, Mr. Magruder also taught SFA students how to produce their own work in off-Off Broadway theatres in New York.
SFA students learned high-level techniques from David Zimmerman, makeup artist for top models and actors, Broadway shows ("Wicked"), and New York’s Metropolitan Opera. He is currently head of hair and makeup design at Santa Fe Opera, Dallas Opera, and Tulsa Opera.
Our students auditioned and interviewed for backstage positions at the renowned Texas Shakespeare Festival when TSF artistic director Raymond Caldwell visited the SFA campus in January. SFA students, alumni and faculty work frequently at the Kilgore-based Festival.
In another exciting workshop, actor/director Bill Kincaid, head of the acting program at Western Illinois University and founder of Bard in the Barn, immersed SFA acting students in Patrick Tucker’s stunning “Unrehearsed Shakespeare” technique.
Stage management students were visited by guest lecturer George Boyd, a veteran of Broadway and regional theatre who served as production stage manager of the international tour of Disney’s "Beauty and the Beast," among many other shows.
In addition, SFA student performers worked side-by-side on stage with Equity actor Kyle Kennedy in our main stage production of “Lend Me a Tenor.” Mr. Kennedy is an assistant professor of acting and directing at SFA.
SFA students performed in rehearsed readings of three scripts in our biennial Festival of New American Plays, founded by playwright and School of Theatre visiting professor Jack Heifner (Vanities). Dramatist Staci Swedeen of New York, playwright and screenwriter Richard Strahle (My Samurai) of Colorado, and Tony and Emmy Award-nominee William M. Hoffman (As Is) visited campus for the length of the festival, working on their plays and interacting with students in a variety of ways.
Planned for 2008-09:
Aole T. Miller, who served as Michelle Williams’s acting coach for her Academy Award-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain, will give an intensive movement workshop for SFA Theatre students. Brooklyn-based Miller is also artistic director of New Moon Rep and Creative Director of Studio 5. He has taught at NYU, Yale, USC and many other schools, and he is the first African American ceremonial mask dancer of Bali.