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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 2008-09:
Los Angeles and Las Vegas-based musical theatre star Ali Spuck, an SFA Theatre alumna, gave a day-long workshop on audition techniques for musical theatre. Spuck, who was a member of The Original Cast at SFA, has starred in national and international tours, regional productions and television/film, and was nominated for an Ovation Award for her performance in “It Came From Beyond” in LA. She also appeared in the Pasadena Playhouse production of Vanities: A New Musical by SFA playwright-in-residence Jack Heifner.
Melissa McMillian-Cunningham, who as vice president of the Texas Educational Theatre Association’s K-12 branch serves as leader of all of the state’s elementary and secondary drama teachers, met with SFA’s theatre education majors to discuss issues confronting high school drama teachers today, and to help the instructors of tomorrow develop a positive vision for teaching theatre in Texas public schools. McMillian-Cunningham, who is director of theatre at Central Heights High School and an SFA alumna, led a lively discussion with more than a dozen prospective drama teachers.
Early in the spring semester, Kerby Thompson, producing artistic director of New York’s Cortland Repertory Theatre, visited SFA to audition theatre majors for his 2009 summer season. He also provided invaluable feedback on every student’s audition. That came in handy when Brent Hazleton, artistic associate of Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, arrived to audition BFA performance candidates for his company’s prestigious year-long artistic internship program. Soon thereafter, Raymond Caldwell and John Dodd, artistic director and managing director, respectively, of the Texas Shakespeare Festival, conducted auditions and interviews with SFA theatre majors for positions onstage and off- in their upcoming summer season.
Internationally renowned movement and voice specialist Aole T. Miller, who served as Michelle Williams’s acting coach for her Academy Award-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain, gave an intensive three-day workshop on using imagery in movement and character. Best known for his mask work, he is the first African American ceremonial mask dancer of Bali. Brooklyn-based Miller teaches and directs extensively in Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and Denmark and has previously taught at American universities including Yale, NYU and Southern Cal.
Actors, singers and dancers from the SFA Schools of Theatre and Music performed alongside veteran professional actor and musical theatre expert Dr. Alan Nielsen in the Mainstage presentation of Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Dr. Nielsen, who is also the founder/director of SFA’s musical theatre cabaret revue troupe, The Original Cast, played Mark Twain’s unforgettable swindler, “The King.” He is pictured here with junior theatre major Austin Chason, who played his partner-in-crime, The Duke.
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.
Guest scenic designer Richard Ellis worked with student crews to create sets for the Summer Rep productions of Androcles and the Lion, Driving Miss Daisy and Crimes of the Heart (pictured). Ellis has served as resident designer at Houston's Tony Award-winning Alley Theatre, scenic coordinator at New York's Radio City Music Hall, professor of design at the City University of New York and resident designer at Joanne Woodward's Westport Country Playhouse, among many other professional credits. "He had a mountain full of advice and information that would definitely help us on our paths," wrote student assistant technical director Miguel Maymi. "Not to mention his great set designs which I absolutely love."