The animation studio OddBot Inc. has optioned the three books of theatre professor Andrew Hartley's Steeplejack trilogy for development as a limited TV series or movie. The trio of young adult fantasy/adventure novels are set in the 19th century in a fictional land similar to South Africa and feature a courageous teen-aged...
Last spring's applied theatre course, The Questioning Justice Project, took on even greater urgency when COVID interrupted the semester (and life), and the murder of George Floyd activated national protests. The course, taught by professors Beth Murray and David Fillmore, challenged the 17 students to ask: What is justice? What are the many forms of...
Assistant Professor of Theatre Kaja Dunn delivered the keynote address at the Emergency Conference on Undergraduate Theater Education presented by George Mason University, July 13-17. The conference, held virtually, was organized in response to the challenges to teaching and performing that are the result of the COVID-19...
The Nouveau Sud Circus Project, founded and directed by Associate Professor of Theatre CarlosAlexis Cruz, has been named a 2020 National Theater Project finalist by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA). Chosen from among 90 applicants, the 28 finalists...
Associate Professor of Scenic Design Tom Burch was a participant in the National Puppetry Conference hosted June 8-12 by the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center. Led by Artistic Director Pam Arciero, a principal puppeteer with Sesame Street, the annual National Puppetry Conference was founded 30 years ago to encourage and advance...
Working from home this spring, in his position as Senior Research Administrator of Invoicing in Grants and Contracts Administration at UNC Charlotte, Zack Tarlton (Bachelor of Architecture, 2013) started playing piano during his lunch hour. While his academic training is in architecture, Tarlton has a long history in musical theatre.
“I basically grew up at Matthews Playhouse,” he says...
Assistant Professor of Acting Kaja Dunn and Chris Berry, who will return to the Department of Theatre faculty in August, will perform in a workshop reading of a new play by Celeste Jennings, streaming live on May 22 at 7:30 pm. The play-in-progress, Processing, is set in Charlotte and addresses Black economics and immigration through the lens of a married couple. A talkback follows...
On April 23, Dr. Andrew Hartley will publish his 23rd novel. Hartley, the Robinson Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare Studies in the Department of Theatre, is an internationally respected Shakespeare scholar and an expert, in particular, on Julius Caesar. Outside of academic circles, though, he is better known as A.J. Hartley – or in some cases Andrew Hart – a New...
Assistant Professor of Acting Kaja Dunn performed the role of “She” in the premiere of Natural Shocks – A One-Woman Play in a Tornado, a new work by award-winning playwright Lauren Gunderson. The virtual staged reading, presented by the Women’s Theatre Festival, was streamed live on Thursday, March 26, at 7:30 pm EDT via the platform Twitch and was followed by a Q&A with the...
The Mother, a new play by Department of Theatre Chair Lynne Conner, received its world premiere by Dramatic Repertory Company in Portland, Maine, in March. The play explores the effects on a mother – and her family – of a school shooting that is perpetrated by her son. A...