Performing Arts
Assistant Professor (1969)
B.S. Valparaiso University; M.S.Sp. Emerson College;
Ms. Adams teaches in the design/ technology area with a specialty in makeup, crafts and puppetry. She received her training in make up for theatre from Jack Stein, and for film, television and special effects with Vincent Kehoe at the Research Council of Makeup Artists. Her professional work includes design responsibilities at major Boston television stations, historical productions for Sudbury Militia and Minuteman National Park in Lexington, Massachusetts. She continues to serve as consultant to local educational, community and regional theatre companies. She has also conducted workshops for the Puppeteers of New England and New England Theatre Conference. At the College she has designed and executed costumes, specialty headgear, makeup and puppets for department productions.
Benny Sato Ambush
Distinguished Producing Director-In-Residence (2008)
B.A. Brown University; M.F.A. University of California, San Diego;
Melia Bensussen
Chair and Associate Professor (2000)
B.A. Brown University;
Professor Melia Bensussen is the recipient of an OBIE Award for Outstanding Direction, and has directed extensively around the country and in New York.
Theatres where she has directed include Baltimore Centerstage, Hartford Stage Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, the New York Shakespeare Festival (where she was an Artist in Residence for many years), Manhattan Class Company, Primary Stages, the Long Wharf, Actors Theatre of Louisville (Humana Festival), People's Light and Theatre Company (Barrymore nomination for Best Direction), San Jose Rep, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, and many others.
She has directed the world premiers of works by Alan Ball (Five Women Wearing the Same Dress), Lee Blessing, Jeffrey Hatcher (Turn of the Screw, Scotland Road, Fabulous Invalid), Richard Dresser, Edwin Sanchez, Joe DiPietro, Regina Taylor, Willy Holtzman, Eduardo Machado, Y York, and others, as well as collaborated with such distinguished writers as Tony Kushner, Jonathan Larson, and Jose Rivera on productions of their plays.
She was twice given Directing Awards by the Princess Grace Foundation, USA, and is a recipient of their top honor, the Statuette Award (for Sustained Excellence in Directing). Her edition of the Langston Hughes translation of Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding is in its fifth printing by Theatre Communications Group.
A graduate of Brown University, she is a featured artist in Women Stage Directors Speak, by Rebecca Daniels (published by McFarland and Company), and her production of Twelfth Night at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is featured in Women Direct Shakespeare, by Nancy Taylor (published in 2005 by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press).
Amelia Broome-Silberman
Artist-in-Residence (2002)
B.A. University of West Florida; M.F.A. Boston University;
Ms. Broome is a vocal and dialect coach and has over twenty years experience performing leading roles in opera, operetta, musical theatre, and plays throughout New England, Georgia, Florida, and Canada. In Boston she has performed with Longwood Opera, Janus Opera, and Boston Lyric Opera. Amelia is a certified Linklater voice teacher.
Kenneth Cheeseman
Artist-in-Residence (2004)
Prof. Training University of Rhode Island; Prof. Training Trinity Repertory Conservatory;
Mr. Cheeseman studied at the International Film Workshops, with feature film directors Mark Rydell, Alex Singer, Peter Werner and Kevin Reynolds and studied improvisation with Keith Johnstone. He received the grant, "Partners in Production" to produce television programs with Boston's Deaf Community. He is Director of Educational Services for the Boston Shakespeare Company and has hosted two children's television shows, Story Shop and The Lil' Iguana Show, winners of New England Emmy and Massachusetts Broadcast Awards. He has appeared in: Domino One, Mystic River, Sundown, Big Night, Blue Diner, Next Stop Wonderland, State and Main, The Crucible, Malice, Housesitter, In Dreams, and The Proposition and television shows Monk and Law and Order: CI. He is a member of the American Repertory Theatre and Trinity Rep and has worked at regional theatres around the country as well as off-Broadway in New York.
Robert Colby
Graduate Program Director, Director of Teacher Education and Associate Professor (1977)
B.A. University of Michigan; M.A. Eastern Michigan University; Ed.D. Harvard University;
Dr. Colby teaches in the areas of theatre education and theatre for young audiences, and directing. His productions for young audiences have toured extensively throughout the New England area and have been showcased at regional and national conferences. He has published in Children?s Theatre Review, Youth Theatre Journal, and 2D: Drama/Dance, and in 2003 he was recognized for his contributions to the field of theatre education with the Lin Wright Special Recognition Award given by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education.
Kathleen Donohue
Associate Professor (1978)
B.A. University of Texas; M.F.A. University of Iowa;
Ms. Donohue is a member of Actor's Equity and has worked professionally in both television and theatre. She has taught acting workshops for the International Association for the Study of Dreams in Delphi, Greece, and produced and performed in Living In Exile - A Retelling of the Iliad in Edinburgh, Scotland after having toured the show at institutions including the Remis Theatre of The Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Professor Donohue produced the Clauder Competition in Playwrighting and has written and performed her own one-woman shows. From 1990 to 1996 she was Artistic Director for TheatreWorks of Boston, Inc.
Mary Harkins
Associate Professor (1975)
B.A. St. Mary-of-the-Woods College; M.A. Tufts University; Ph.D. Boston College;
J. Ted Hewlett
Artist-in-Residence (2004)
B.A. University of California, Irvine; M.F.A. Brandeis University;
Ted Hewlett is a trained expert in theatrical combat, including hand combat, broadsword, sword and shield, rapier and dagger, small sword, quarterstaff and pole arms. bull whip, and basic equestrian skills. He has served as Fight Director for plays, operas, and television productions in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, and Cleveland. His director credits include Stone Monkey Banished, Macbeth, Richard III, Tartuffe, Dragonwings, and The Pirates of Penzance among many others. Mr. Hewlett?s performance credits include Hook, Tri-Star Pictures; Mathis der Maler, New York City Opera; Army of Darkness, Universal pictures, and Shogun, the original Broadway production in New York City.
Sarah Hickler
Assistant Professor (1994)
B.F.A. Massachusetts College of Art; M.F.A. Boston University;
Ms. Hickler is an actor, choreographer, director and movement specialist. Her physical theater work has been produced in theaters throughout the northeast including Lincoln Center Festival in NYC, and abroad at the Mercury Theatre in England. A former member of the Mobius Artists Group, she has collaborated with experimental theater, dance, media and performance artists from the U.S. and abroad. She has directed critically acclaimed productions for Sun Valley Shakespeare, Sedona Shakespeare, and the Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Co., and has been choreographer/movement director on numerous productions in New York City, Boston and Los Angeles. Ms. Hickler has over twenty years experience training actors and theater educators in graduate and undergraduate university programs such as Brandeis University, Boston University, Harvard University and Boston Conservatory, and professional studios and training programs. She is the director of Shakespeare Sedona Institute in Arizona, and has a long association with Shakespeare & Co. where she performs regularly with DibbleDance Theater and is on the faculty in the professional training programs.
Timothy Jozwick
Associate Professor (1985)
B.A. St. Vincent College; M.F.A. Carnegie Mellon University;
Mr. Jozwick?s design work has been produced for stage, television, and film. In addition to his responsibilities with Emerson Stage, he serves as a Resident Designer for Chamber Repertory Theatre. His work has also been featured at Michigan Opera, The Indianapolis Opera, The Repertory Theatre of Saint Louis, The Goodspeed Opera, The Memphis Opera, The Opera Theatre of Syracuse, and The Dayton Opera. Tim's exhibit designs have been installed in The Museum of Science of Boston, The California Museum of Science, The Franklin Institute, The Chicago Museum of Science, The Ohio Center for Science and Industry, The Science Museum of Minnesota and The City Museum of Saint Louis. Tim is also the recipient of a Regional Emmy Award, and he was the art director for a film documentary that went on to win the National Golden Eagle Award.
Fredericka King
Music Historian-In-Residence (1998)
B.M. Boston Conservatory; M.M. New England Conservatory;
David Krasner
Associate Professor (2007)
B.F.A. Carnegie Mellon University; M.F.A. Virginia Commonwealth University; Ph.D. Tufts University;
Scott LaFeber
Associate Professor (2005)
B.A. Colgate University; M.F.A. University of Texas, Austin;
Scott has acted on Broadway, off-Broadway, in London, regionally, on television (including two years on daytime's Search For Tomorrow), in feature and industrial films, voice-overs (including an Emmy Award-winning segment for PBS) and commercials. He has directed across the country (including productions in New York, Utah, Florida and the North Carolina Theatre where he directed two-time Tony Award-nominee Terrence Mann in Sweeney Todd and Peter Pan) and has a long association with the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts as an actor, cabaret performer and stage manager. A native New Yorker, Scott received acting training at The Circle In The Square Theatre School (where he has also taught) and Weist Barron in New York as well as in London. He has taught at universities for over 20 years. Now a freelance director, Scott directed 30 productions during ten years as artistic director of The New Harmony Theatre, a LORT summer theatre in Indiana, from 1996-2006. He currently teaches acting and singing interpretation/technique for musical theatre here at Emerson.
Craig Mathers
Assistant Professor (2007)
B.A. Bates College; M.F.A. Yale School of Drama;
Craig studied under Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse and is a graduate of The Yale School of Drama. He has also trained at Shakespeare and Company in their month-long intensive and text workshops. Craig has taught acting, both contemporary and classical, at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and at NYU's CAP 21. Craig is a designated Linklater teacher.
Robbie McCauley
Professor (2001)
B.A. Howard University; M.A. New York University;
Robbie McCauley is an OBIE Award playwright and a nationally recognized performance artist and director. An AUDELCO Award recipient for acting, her directing credits include the premier of Daniel Alexander Jones? Bel Canto co-produced with The Theater Offensive and Wheelock Family Theater. One of the early cast members of Ntozake Shange?s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, Ms. McCauley went on to write and perform regularly in cities across the country, striving to facilitate dialogues on race between local whites and blacks. She is anthologized in several books including Extreme Exposure by Jo Bonney, ed.; Moon Marked and Touched by Sun by Sydne Mahone, ed.; and Out of Character edited by Mark Russell.
Leonidas Nickole
Professor Emeritus of Performing Arts (1953)
A.B. Emerson College; A.M. Emerson College; M.A. Columbia University;
Robert Orchard
Stephen G. Langley Chair in Theatre Management and Production (2009)
B.A. Middlebury College; M.F.A. Yale University;
Scott Pinkney
Assistant Professor (2004)
B.F.A. Boston University;
Prior to joining the Emerson faculty full time, Scott Pinkney had served as a Visiting Professor and Guest Artist at Emerson College, teaching master classes in lighting design and theater production. Mr. Pinkney has been active in the Boston theater scene for over 30 years. He has designed both on and off Broadway, as well as for many major regional theatres throughout the country. Additionally, he has designed internationally in both Cairo and Singapore. He’s the founder of Pinkney Associates, LLC, a lighting design and production firm for corporate events, tradeshows, and museums. Among his many clients are IBM, Gillette, The World Bank, Hilton Hotels, ABC Television, Novartis, Este Lauder, MCI, Ballet New England, the Los Angeles Dance Theater, and Symphony Hall. Mr. Pinkney teaches lighting design in the Department of Performing Arts.
Joshua Polster
Assistant Professor (2007)
B.S. Ohio University; M.A. Ohio University; Ph.D. University of Washington;
Dr. Joshua Polster teaches courses in theatre history, dramatic theory and dramaturgy. He is the Vice President of the Arthur Miller Society, and a reviewer for Choice Magazine and Twentieth-Century Literature. Dr. Polster is the author of Rethinking Arthur Miller: Symbol and Structure (The Edwin Mellen Press, forthcoming). His articles have appeared in or are forthcoming in a Metheun Drama edition of Arthur Miller's A Memory of Two Mondays, Critical Insights, Bloom's Literary Themes, Law and Literature, The Arthur Miller Journal,Texas Theatre Journal, and The Ancient Theatre Archive. Dr. Polster's other publications include entries on theatre and drama for The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives and The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. His scholarship earned him a Modern Language Quarterly grant and the Michael Quinn Writing Award. He has presented papers at the American Society of Theatre Research Conference, Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference, Mid-American Theatre Conference, American Drama Conference, American Literature Association, Comparative Drama Conference, and International Arthur Miller Conference. He has taught at Roosevelt University, Columbia College and the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts. In addition to his scholarship and teaching, Dr. Polster has directed or assistant directed critically acclaimed plays in London and Chicago. He was the Assistant Director of the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton, England, the Assistant Artistic Administrator at the Goodman Theatre, and the founding Artistic Director of the Steep Theatre Company in Chicago.
Magda Romanska
Assistant Professor (2006)
B.A. Stanford University; M.A. Cornell University; Ph.D. Cornell University;
Dr. Romanska is the Head of Theatre Studies at Emerson College's Department of Performing Arts, and Dramaturgy Advisor for Emerson Stage. In the past, she served on the editorial board of Theater Magazine, Palimpsest: Yale Literary and Arts Magazine, the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities, and Diacritics. Her recent articles have appeared in or are forthcoming in TDR: The Drama Review, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, Toronto Slavic Quarterly, Slovo, Gender Forum, and Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Her two recent book chapters have been published in anthologies Ghosts, Stories, Histories (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, U.K,, 2007), and The Cultural Politics of Heiner Muller (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, U.K., 2008). Dr. Romanska's other contributions include entries on theatre and drama for The Oxford Encyclopedia of African American History (forthcoming from Oxford University Press, 2009), The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest (forthcoming from Blackwell, 2009), and The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama (Columbia University Press, 2007).
Dr. Romanska is a research associate at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America. At Emerson, she teaches courses in Theatre History, Dramatic Theory and Dramaturgy.
Roxanne Schroeder-Arce
Assistant Professor (2006)
B.S. Emerson College; M.F.A. University of Texas, Austin;
Roxanne Schroeder-Arce comes to Emerson from California State University at Fresno where she served as Assistant Professor for three years. Before Fresno, she was Artistic and Education Director of Teatro Humanidad in Austin. She also taught high school in Texas for six years. Although Roxanne is a new faculty member here, she is not a stranger to Emerson and she is thrilled to be back!
One of Roxanne's primary artistic and research interests is that of bilingual theatre with and for youth. She has taught courses for educators focused on Drama and Diversity at institutions such as the Tennessee Arts Academy and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and her bilingual plays have been produced throughout the nation. Her plays Señora Tortuga and Legend of the Poinsettia are available though Anchorage Press Plays. Roxanne is an active member of The United States Center for the International Association of Theater for Children and Young People (TYAUSA) and serves on the Board of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE).
Maureen Shea
Professor (1988)
B.A. Clark University; M.A. University of Connecticut; Ph.D. The Ohio State University;
Dr. Shea teaches in the areas of directing, dramatic literature, and theatre history. She has collaborated with playwrights and composers on a number of new works, including staged readings at the Philadelphia Drama Guild, the Coyote Theatre Company, the Nora Theatre Company, The Theatre Offensive and workshop productions and staged readings for Next Stage Inc., New Voices, and Word of Mouth in Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston, Mass. Her production of How I Got That Story was presented at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as a national finalist in the American College Theatre Festival. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Iowa Playwrights Lab and at the Toneelacademie in Maastricht, The Netherlands. She was an Associate Director of the Company of Women, an all female Shakespeare Company. She is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.
Stephen Terrell
Head of Musical Theatre and Artist-in-Residence (2003)
;
Mr. Terrell is a director and choreographer with an extensive background in musical theatre, opera, and contemporary and classical theatre. His work has been seen at Off-Broadway's Minetta Lane Theatre, Goodspeed Opera House (Connecticut Critics' Circle Award, Best Choreographer), and the Texas Shakespeare Festival, where he is a founding member and resident director. His work in opera includes productions for Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Paris Opera, Teatro Real in Madrid, and Bunkamura Theatre in Tokyo, among others. A former actor-singer-dancer, Mr. Terrell appeared in shows on and off Broadway, at Radio City Music Hall, and at numerous theatres across the country.
Scott Wheeler
Associate Professor (1989)
B.A. Amherst College; M.F.A. Brandeis University; Ph.D. Brandeis University;
Dr. Wheeler is a composer and conductor. As a composer, he has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Koussevitsky Foundation, the Fromm Foundation, Tanglewood, the National Endowment for the Arts, and many others. As a conductor, Scott Wheeler can be heard on several recent CDs conducting the Boston-based Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, of which he is co-Artistic Director, and on a recent Newport Classic CD, conducting members of the Orchestra of St. Luke's. His musical compositions include the operas Democracy: An American Comedy and The Construction of Boston.
Marlena Yannetti
Artist-In-Residence (1982)
B.S. Boston University;
Marlena Yannetti is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association, having performed on Broadway and in National Touring companies of "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying", "Unsinkable Molly Brown" and "Talent '61". She has appeared in "Hair" at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston as tribe member and dance captain. Her choreography has been seen at various venues in and around the Boston area, as well as at Emerson College in Faculty Dance Concerts.
