Conference Program 2018
General Schedule 2018
Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival Conference on Pedagogy and Performance September 27 & 28, 2018
“My crown is in my heart, not on my head” --3 Henry VI 3.1
Thursday, September 27
10:15 a.m. - Registration and Coffee (Haas CPA Lobby)
10:45 – 11:00 a.m. – Welcome by Dr. Alli Metz and Prof. Dennis Henry (Haas CPA Lobby)
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. – ALL CONFERENCE SESSION: GV Shakespeare Festival 25th Anniversary Alumni Panel including Scott Watson, Kathleen Bode and Katherine Mayberry with scenes from the new play Defy the Stars (1721)
12:15- 2:00 p.m. – ALL CONFERENCE SESSION: Michael LoMonico pedagogy workshop “Demystifying Shakespeare’s Language.” (Keller Black Box Theatre)
2:00-3:00 p.m. – All Conference lunch,
Featuring a performance of scenes from Green Show Troupe (1721)
3:00-3:15 p.m. – Break
3:15-4:40 p.m. – OPEN SESSION (concurrent) Paper Session #1 (1721 & 1506)
4:40-5:00 p.m.—Shakespeare Flash Mob (Meet in Haas CPA Lobby)
5:00-6:30 p.m. Dinner Break on Own (Map of local restaurants provided)
6:30– 7:15 p.m. – Henry VI “Informance” with Katherine Mayberry, Scott Lange and David Little (1721)
7:15-7:30 p.m. - Break and find seats for performance in Keller Black Box
7:30 -10:15 p.m. – Henry VI presented by Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company (Keller Black Box)
10:15-10:40 p.m. – Talk back with Henry VI Cast
10:40 p.m.-1:00 a.m. Discussions continue at Main Street Pub (11240 University Pkwy, 49401)
Friday, September 28
9:00 – 9:30 a.m. - Registration and Coffee, (Haas CPA Lobby)
9:30 – 10:50 a.m. - OPEN SESSION (concurrent) #2 (1721 & 1506)
10:50 a.m. – 11:05 a.m.- Break
11:05 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. – OPEN SESSION (concurrent) #3 (1506 & 1721)
12:30 – 1:20 p.m. – Lunch on own (Campus Dining Centers will be most convenient)
1:20 - 2:40 p.m. – OPEN SESSION (concurrent) #4 (1721 & 1506)
2:40- 3:40 p.m. King Lear Informance led by Jo Miller and featuring King Lear cast members Brian Webb Russell, Haley Jennings and Parker Ykimoff (Recital Hall)
3:40-4:30 p.m. –Reception with performance of scenes from Bard to Go: Twelfth Night (Pere Marquette Room, Kirkhoff Center)
4:30-5:30 p.m. – KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Michael LoMonico "Every Student Deserves Shakespeare: Equity, Diversity, Identity, and Inclusion." (Pere Marquette Room, Kirkhoff Center)
5:30 - 7:15 p.m. – Dinner Break on Own (Map of local restaurants provided)
7:15-7:30 p.m. --Find Seats in Louis Armstrong Theatre
7:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m. – King Lear presented by Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival (Louis Armstrong Theatre)
10:20 -11:15 p.m. Grand Valley Shakespeare 25th Anniversary and Opening Night Reception (Haas CPA Lobby)
11:15 p.m. -1:00 a.m. Discussions continue at Main Street Pub (11240 University Pkwy, 49401)
2018 GV SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL CONFERENCE
Haas CPA Room 1721
Haas CPA Room 1506
OPEN SESSION 1
Thursday, September 27
3:15 p.m.- 4:40 p.m.
SHAKESPEARE IN PERFORMANCE
Monica Cross
“Devising with Shakespeare”
Noel Sloboda
“The Debut of Cardenio”
Ginna Hoben
“Sharp Left: Abrupt Changes in Text and How to Perform Them with Authenticity”
Scott Harman
“With Courtesy and with Respect Enough: Choosing Originality Over Original Practices in Julius Caesar”
SHAKESPEARE AND IDENTITY
Ismael Santos
“Is Othello Universal? Even in Miami?”
Nora Wickman
“English Nationality and Kingship in Richard II”
Sherri Ahern
“The Merchant of Venice and Minority Identity”
OPEN SESSION 2
Friday, September 28
9:30 a.m.- 10:50 a.m.
WORKSHOP:
Ray Proctor
“Playing Power: Establishing Status in Shakespeare”
NEW APPROACHES IN THE CLASSROOM
Rick Blunt
“Disposable Learning: Stories from the Classroom”
Anna Ullmann
“Interdisciplinary Shakespeare: Integrating Humanities and Social Sciences in the Literature Classroom”
Nathan Bradley
“We Know What We Are But We Know Not What We May Be: Differentiating Instruction in the Performing Arts”
OPEN SESSION 3
Friday, September 28
11:05 a.m.- 12:30 p.m.
WORKSHOP:
Jaime Goodrich
“Dividing the Kingdoms: Interdisciplinary Methods for Teaching King Lear to Undergraduates”
ANTIC DISPOSITIONS: HAMLET AND RICHARD III
Glenn Schudel
“Every Tongue Brings in a Several Tale: The Rise and Fall of Rhetoric in Richard III”
Anne Lovering Rounds
”Hamlet, Mental Health and Learning”
Benjamin Curns
“Performing Richard III as a ‘Serial Killer’”
Alyssa Miller
“The Queen of Scene Fourteen: A Feminist Case for the Early Quartos in Pedagogy and Performance."
OPEN SESSION 4
Friday September 28
1:20 p.m.- 3:40 p.m.
DESIGNING SHAKESPEARE: SETS, COSTUMES AND VIOLENCE
Alain Jr Plamondon
“Vengeance and Dueling in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama”
Paul Collins and Ann Dasen
“Designing Sets and Costumes for the Cinematic Pericles, Prince of Tyre”
Steven Schwall
“On Staging Fights and Especially Battles under Original Practices Conditions”
Bridgett Vanderhoff
“Gender and Costume Design in The Comedy of Errors”
SHAKESPEARE, SOVEREIGNTY, AND POWER
Geoffrey Johns
“Where’s the Master?: Treachery, Indulgence, and Disorder in The Tempest”
Nathanial B. Smith
“Bewteen Hearts and Heads: ‘motion’ and the “little Kingdom” in Julius Caesar”
Rodel Salazar
“Aimé Césaire’s Une Tempête (A Tempest): A postcolonial perspective on race, power, and decolonization.”
Presenter, Panelist and Committee Bios
2018 Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival Conference Presenter Bios
Sherri A. Ahern is a second-year graduate student in the English Literature Master’s program at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. She is currently working on her thesis, which will explore how Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can represent the feelings and experiences of some Miami residents who struggle with racial and national identity. Sherri is also an active member of the Collegiate Recovery Community.
Rick Blunt has an M.F.A. in Shakespeare & Performance from Mary Baldwin University. At the American Shakespeare Center, Rick has appeared as 60 different characters in over 30 productions, including Falstaff, Iago, Nick Bottom, Don Armado, Sir Toby Belch, and most recently Puck. He has taught Shakespeare workshops at places such as University of Texas-Austin, Georgetown University, and Mississippi State University and dozens of others.. His original, one-man show, Boatloads of Shame, has toured Staunton, VA, Los Angeles, and NYC. Rick has taught four semesters of Acting and Shakespeare at Hollins University as part of the Hollins Theatre Institute in Roanoke, VA. Rick is a former collegiate athlete and came to love Shakespeare while climbing telephone poles for the telephone company. If you take one of Rick’s classes expect a high-energy environment with a lot of fist bumps and pep talks from a former tennis and softball coach.
Nathan Bradley is an English teacher in Roanoke, VA. He is a co-founder of 2 Muses Productions, a Shakespeare company in SWVA. While primarily an actor, Nathan studies Shakespeare for the classroom, the theatre, and the fun. Currently, he is preparing for the role of Macduff in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Paul Collins is a Scenic and Lighting Designer based in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Paul is active in professional and academic theatres around the country. Paul is currently Assistant Professor at Central Michigan University, teaching courses in theatrical design and production. Paul has previously been on the faculty at College of Charleston (SC), and Technical Director at GVSU (MI). Paul has studied at University of Michigan (BFA), Grand Valley State University (MS) and University of Iowa (MFA).
Monica Cross is the Production Manager at New College of Florida, where she also teaches courses in technical theater and design. Her academic areas of interest are early modern drama and science-fiction theater. She recently won “Venue Tech Choice Award” and runner-up for “Best in Fest” for The Weyward Sisters, a three-woman adaptation of Macbeth at the Tampa International Fringe Festival 2018.
Benjamin Curns is a theatre artist currently teaching at Southern Connecticut State University. He has appeared as an actor on television (Quantico, Grave Mysteries), the web (Berenice, Batman: Master of Fear), and the theatre including sixteen seasons at the American Shakespeare Center. At ASC, he directed several nationally touring productions and acted in dozens of plays including the title roles in Macbeth, Hamlet Q1, and Richard III.
Ann Dasen is the resident Costume/Hair/Make-up Designer and Assistant Professor of Costume Design in the Department of Theatre & Dance at Central Michigan University. Ann has designed and managed costumes for various theatres in Michigan, Philadelphia and New York. At CMU, Ann’s areas of interest and continued practice focus on special effect make-up and integrating nontraditional technology, such as sound and light, into costume designs.
Jaime Goodrich is an Associate Professor of English at Wayne State University and the coordinator of “Dividing the Kingdoms: Interdisciplinary Methods for Teaching King Lear to Undergraduates.” She has written a book on early modern Englishwomen’s religious translations as well as numerous articles on the lives and writings of early modern Catholic women.
Scott Harman is a Ph. D Candidate in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds an M.A. in Theatre History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.A. in Theatre and Dance from Alma College. His scholarship focuses primarily on acting theory and pedagogy. He has worked as an educator, actor, director and technician in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York, and has served on the faculties of Alma College and Parkland College. Scott is also a longtime faculty member at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Recent Shakespeare credits include directing Julius Caesar, Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing at the Interlochen Shakespeare Festival and John of Gaunt in Madison Shakespeare Company’s production of Richard II.
Ginna Hoben is a New York-based actor/writer and current Assistant Professor of Theatre at Lake Superior State University. Her most recent play, No Spring Chicken premiered at NextStop Theatre as part of D.C.’s Women’s Voices Theatre Festival in 2015, and evolved from a solo show to a two-hander when it was produced by Transylvania University and Project SEE Theatre in 2016. Ginna’s play, The Twelve Dates of Christmas has enjoyed over fifty productions nation and worldwide. She has also been a writer for the app "ParentSpark" and a writer/producer for the Emmy nominated TV show, Brain Games. Ginna has performed at various American regional theatres, most notably in 31 productions at American Shakespeare Center, including Kate in Taming of the Shrew, Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and the titular role in the World Premiere of Shakespeare’s Sister by Emma Whipday. Other companies include Cape May Stage, CATCO, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Geoffrey A. Johns teaches in the Department of English Language and Literature at Central Michigan University. His areas of teaching and research specialty include the drama and popular culture of late Medieval and Early Modern England. Topics of particular interest in his work include gender, social order, transgression, and subjectivity, as well as performance theories and print culture. Dr. Johns' perennial book project is a study of literal and metaphorical "monsters" in early English texts, especially those of public and civic drama and ephemeral popular print literatures.
Alyssa Miller is a current PhD student in English at the University of Colorado Boulder where she studies Renaissance dramatic literature and feminist and queer theory. She received her B.A. from Yale University, and wrote her senior thesis on the First Quarto of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Alyssa has also worked as a dramaturg and assistant director at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival.
John (Ray) Proctor Holds a BA in English from Webster University in St. Louis, MO, an MFA in Acting from West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV, and he earned a Ph. D. in Theatre Research (with a primary focus on Shakespeare Studies) from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. The focus of his dissertation considered the ways in which mid-twentieth century theatre audiences learned to negotiate issues of class, race and integration within the framework of a particular 1942 production of Othello that featured Paul Robeson. Prior to earning his Ph.D. Proctor also had an extensive career as an actor. In the Chicago/Milwaukee region he has appeared as a member of the ensemble for Ain't Misbehavin', as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, and ensemble member of Between Men and Cattle, Peter Lorraine Hansberry's Les Blancs, and Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. He has performed in the national tours of Big River and Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story. He has performed the title role in Othello in New York, West Virginia, St. Louis, Tucson and Chicago. Proctor co-authored (with Ms. Olivia Dawson), Out Loud, which opened at eta Creative Arts Foundation on Chicago's south side. The play ran for nine weeks and received outstanding reviews. In July Chicago's Black Theatre Alliance announced that Proctor and Dawson's Out Loud had received seven 2014 Black Theatre Alliance nominations (Best Play, Best New Script, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Ensemble).
Ismael Santos is a student at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, in the Master's program of English Literature. Ismael is a first-generation American of a Latinx family who is currently studying connections between Jazz, the Archive, and Literature from the Harlem Renaissance to the contemporary field.
Rodel Salazar is a third-year PhD student and a GTA in French Studies at Wayne State University. He holds an MA in French from Wayne State, and a BA in Theatre from Grand Valley State University. His research interests are in twentieth- and twenty-first-century French and Francophone theatre and cultural studies. His dissertation focuses on playwrights that exhibit women and gender themes and post-colonialism and racism topics in French Caribbean, French Africa and Quebecois plays. He has also worked professionally as a director and an actor and is currently a company member with the Detroit Actor’s Theatre Company.
Alain Jr Plamondon is currently a history PhD candidate at the Université du Québec à Montréal. His doctoral research explores the representation of single combat on the Elizabethan stage in relation to the notions of honour, justice, love, and revenge. His research interests include the history of violence, the history of religious conflicts in the early modern period, and the relationship between history and literature.
Anne Lovering Rounds has been an assistant professor of English at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College, City University of New York, since 2012. An interdisciplinary scholar of poetry and music, she has published in Ars Lyrica, The Journal of Beat Studies, Literary Imagination, Proteus, and Soundings. Her debut poetry collection, Variations in an Emergency (2016), received the Cathlamet Prize for poetry from Ravenna Press, and her second volume, Little Double Elegy for All of You, is forthcoming with Ravenna in 2019. Anne is also an active classical pianist whose teachers have included Lura Johnson, Ruth Rose, and Adam Tendler.
Glenn Schudel earned his M.Litt and MFA, both with an emphasis on dramaturgy, from Mary Baldwin University’s graduate program in Shakespeare and Performance. He spent four years with the American Shakespeare Center, wearing a variety of hats in their Artistic and Education departments, and taught Theatre at Randolph College. He now works as a freelance script editor and text coach in Sarasota, FL, where he also teaches Creative Writing at Ringling College of Art and Design, and leads acting and audition workshops at Venice Theatre.
Steven Schwall has been staging fights professionally since 2006. He is a Certified Teacher of Stage Combat with the Society of American Fight Directors. In addition, he is a Level 1 professor of the Margolis Method of Dynamic Movement. He is also a practitioner of Historic European Martial Arts (HEMA), and Ko-Ryu Kabudo (Okinawan weapons). He has recently added Intimacy Direction to his repertoire. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Fine Art and did his graduate work in Theater/Performance Studies at Eastern Michigan University. He has been an instructor at several SAFD regional workshops and has presented workshops for the Community Theatre Association of Michigan (CTAM), the South East Theater Conference (SETC) twice, the American Association of Community Theaters (AACT), and the GV Shakespeare Festival Conference in 2014. His Shakespearean work includes “original practices” work with Bill Kincaid at Western Illinois University, and locally with Pigeon Creek Shakespeare for whom he is a regular fight director.
Noel Sloboda teaches at Penn State York. His work on Shakespearean film adaptation has appeared in Studies in the Humanities, Literature/Film Quarterly, and The Journal of the Wooden O. Sloboda frequently contributes performance reviews to Shakespeare Bulletin. He previously served as resident dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Company.
Nathanial B. Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Central Michigan University. He has published essays on humoral medicine and rhetoric in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and he co-edited a collection of essays, “Teaching Medieval Literature Off the Grid,” for the journal Pedagogy. His current research draws on affect theory to explore conceptions of the body and soul in late medieval and early modern literature.
Dr. Anna Ullmann is an adjunct professor of English and Writing at Loyola University Chicago, where she obtained her PhD earlier this year. She has taught Loyola’s Shakespeare course for non-majors and literature survey courses incorporating Shakespeare and other early modern writers. In 2016, she wrote several popular essays for the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre as part of their city-wide “Shakespeare 400” celebration. In addition to the early modern period, her research interests include Marxist theory, historical narrative, and the pedagogy of reading and writing as social justice.
Bridgett Vanderhoof (she/her/hers) is a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies with a focus in Theatre for Youth and a minor in Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her main research interests are American Theatre for Young Audiences, gender non-binary performance and representation, and costuming young actors. She holds a MA in Theatre & Drama from UW-Madison (2015), and a BA in Theatre from Grand Valley State University (2013). During the summer, she is the Co-Director of the Junior Theatre Production and the Young Actors' Workshop at Interlochen Arts Camp in Northern Michigan.
Nora Manca Wickman is Artistic Director of Odd's Bodkins, a Shakespeare Ensemble in Chicago. She has her MFA and MLitt in Shakespeare and Performance from Mary Baldwin University. She enjoys learning about the details of Shakespeare’s life and putting on plays with Early Modern staging conditions.
GUEST SPEAKERS and PANELISTS
KEYNOTE SPEAKER and SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE
Michael LoMonico- Folger Shakespeare Library
Sessions: KEYNOTE SPEAKER, WORKSHOP LEADER: “Demystifying Shakespeare's Language”, FLASH MOB LEADER
Michael LoMonico shows his passion for Shakespeare by writing, speaking, and leading workshops whenever and wherever he can. It is his goal to change the way that Shakespeare is taught in this country, and so far he has taught Shakespeare courses and workshops for teachers and students in 40 states as well as in Canada, England, and the Bahamas.
Michael is the Senior Consultant on National Education for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. Since 1986, he has worked at the Teaching Shakespeare Institute at the Folger as the Institute Director and Master Teacher and. He has organized and directed two-day and week-long Folger Institutes across the U.S. He also serves as Secretary for the Shakespeare Theater Association.
Michael is the author of a novel, That Shakespeare Kid and the reference book, Shakespeare 101, published by Random House. He recently published the Second Edition of The Shakespeare Book of Lists. He was the founder and editor of Shakespeare magazine, published by Cambridge University Press and Georgetown University. He was an assistant to the editor for the curriculum section of all three volumes of the Folger’s Shakespeare Set Free series, published by Washington Square Press. He was also the technical editor to The Complete Idiots Guide to Shakespeare.
He was the guest editor for September 2009 "Teaching Shakespeare" edition of the English Journal and was also the guest editor for the CEA Critic, a publication of the College English Association.
Michael taught high school English on Long Island for 33 years and English Methods at Stony Brook University. He is currently working on a novel based on his father’s 1933 diary about his CCC adventure.
GUEST PANELISTS
Kathleen Bode, Pigeon Creek Shakespeare
Sessions: CAST OF KING LEAR, 25TH ANNIVERSARY ALUMNI PANEL
Kathleen has been performing with Pigeon Creek since 1999. Previous roles with PCSC include Ariel in The Tempest, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, and Olivia in Twelfth Night, Henry IV in Henry IV Part I, Parolles in All’s Well That Ends Well, Orlando in As You Like It, Polixenes in The Winter’s Tale , Lady Teazle in School for Scandal, and Bolingbroke in Richard II, as well as Gertrude in Hamlet at the Rose Theater. She was nominated for a Wilde award for her performance as Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and received her BA in Liberal Studies with an emphasis in Children's Theatre and Social Change from GVSU.
Scott Lange, Pigeon Creek Shakespeare
Sessions: HENRY VI INFORMANCE PANEL, CAST & MUSIC DIRECTOR HENRY VI
Scott is a professional actor, director, and music director in the West Michigan area. This is his third festival as a musical director for the Grand Valley Shakespeare festival, having also worked with Bard To Go in the 2017 season, and he composed music for the most recent production of Much Ado About Nothing. Scott has also composed music for Aquinas College, Mary Baldwin University, and The Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company, where he is President of their Board of Directors. Scott also has a B.A. in theater at Grand Valley and was seen on stage as Hotspur in Henry IV: Part I, and Angelo in Measure for Measure. He also acted with the Shakespeare festival as an alumnus as Duke Senior and Duke Frederick in As You Like It, and Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. Scott also works regularly with The Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company as an actor and director. This season he has directed Hamlet, and was seen on stage as The Citizen in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, the Balladeer in Henry VI," and Antony in Antony and Cleopatra.
David Taylor Little, Ball State University
Sessions: HENRY VI INFORMANCE PANEL, DIRECTOR OF HENRY VI
David is on the faculty at Ball State University where he teaches acting, introduction to theatre, and other various courses. He has directed plays, musicals, and operas all over the country. Some of his credits include The Impressario, La Boheme, and Hansel and Gretel at Blue Lake Opera, Private Lives, Wit, and Harvey for The Theatre Factory in Pittsburgh, PA, A Christmas Carol and Sherlock Holmes: The Sleeping Detective at The Gilbert Theatre in Fayetteville, NC and Our Country and Straight On Til Morning in New York City. He also spent three consecutive years as an assistant director for "The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway." He holds an MFA in directing from the New School, and is a frequent faculty member at West Michigan's Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, where he teaches musical theatre, acting, and voice.
Scott Watson, Independent Artist
Sessions: 25TH ANNIVERSARY PANEL, PLAYWRIGHT OF DEFY THE STARS
Scott is an actor/playwright based in Brooklyn, NY. His plays have been produced across the United States. Notable productions include: Wet Glue (Richmond Shepard Theatre, NYC) Pound (Stage Door Productions, Fredericksburg, VA & Durango Arts Center. Durango, CO) as well as L’Homme Blanc (Finalist, Fusion Theatre Company, Albuquerque, NM and Make that Brass Shine Again (Finalist, Metropolitan Playhouse, NYC) Scott earned his B.A. in theatre performance and playwriting from GVSU.
CONFERENCE COMMITTEE BIOS
Dr. James A. Bell (Managing Festival Director, Conference Committee)
Jim is a theatre scholar, playwright, and dramaturg. He holds a B.A. in theatre arts from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in theatre history, theory, and criticism from Florida State University.
Alyssa Evans (Conference Committee)
Alyssa Evans is a graduate student in Grand Valley's English Literature program and an assistant to the Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival. The Shakespeare quote she most relates to is: "I like this place, and willingly could waste my time in it"... as long as the place is a bookstore or her living room sofa.
Dennis Henry (Co-Chair)
Dennis has worked professionally as an actor and director for two decades and has performed in more than 40 U.S. states. Credits include: American Shakespeare Center, Cleveland Play House (where he was the Artistic Fellow for the CPH Centennial Season), Nebraska Repertory Theatre, Pigeon Creek Shakespeare (MI), North Coast Repertory Theatre (CA), and Random Acts Chicago. He is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association. His one-act play Maude and Ellie Play Chess, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015 in the collection Scholars and Poets Talk about Queens. Dennis earned his MFA in Directing for Stage & Screen at the Johnny Carson School for Theatre & Film at the University of Nebraska. As a Visiting Assistant Professor at GVSU, he teaches acting, directing, voice for the actor and Shakespeare.
Sally Langa (Conference Committee)
Sally is the Costume Shop Manager working for both the Theatre department productions and the Music/Opera productions. She has worked for Grand Valley State University since 2001. Sally has a degree in drafting from NCTI. Besides constructing costumes for the theatre department Sally has built costumes for GVSU Dance Program, Grand Rapids Ballet, Hope College Dance, Mason Street Warehouse Theatre, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, West Ottawa High School and Middle School Theatre. She has also designed costumes for Heritage Theatre in Grand Rapids.
Dr. Allison Manville Metz (Co-Chair)
Alli is Associate Professor of Theatre Education and Theatre for Social Change. “Dr. Alli” holds a Ph.D. in Theatre Research, and a B.A. in Theatre and English, from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, as well as an M.F.A. in Drama and Theatre for Youth from the University of Texas – Austin. Dr. Metz has led teacher training workshops all over the United States and co-authored three editions of “Introduction to Integrating Music, Art, and Theatre in Elementary Education,” an arts integration textbook from Kendall Hunt PublishingWhile teaching classes at GVSU, Alli also works with the GVSU Women's Center as the Director of "ReACT!," a peer theatre education troupe which produces interactive theatre programming to help prevent incidents of violence against women on campus. Dr. Alli has also chaired the Shakespeare Pedagogy and Performance Conference for the Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival in 2014 and 2016.
Katherine Mayberry (Conference Committee, Henry VI Informance Panel. 25th Anniversary Alumni Panel)
Katherine is a professional actor and director and the executive director of the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company. She also teaches as an adjunct professor of English and Theatre at Grand Valley State University, and as the Shakespeare Major instructor at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. She received her undergraduate degree at GVSU, and holds Master of Letters and M.F.A. degrees in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Performance from Mary Baldwin College in Partnership with the American Shakespeare Center. She has also received actor training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, the London Theatre Exchange, and the Chekhov Institute.
Emily Mazullo (Festival Production Assistant)
Emily is a senior at GVSU working towards her Bachelors in Marketing with a minor in Theatre. She began her involvement with theatre on the stage in 2008, until she moved backstage by being an Assistant Director in 2014 and Summer Camp Director 2015-2017. She has utilized her leadership experience through her internship with Grand Rapids Symphony and by being VP of Alpha Kappa Psi, Co-Ed Business Fraternity. Emily would like to thank her friends and family for their support, especially Jim for allowing her to take on the position of Production Assistant.
Jo Miller (Conference Committee) - Associate Professor, Department of English in Language and Literature at Grand Valley State University. B.A.University of Oregon; M.A. Colorado State University; Ph.D.,University of Utah. Dr. Miller is co-director of the English Master of Arts program in literary studies. A specialist in Shakespeare and early modern studies, she has been a member of the Shakespeare Festival Committee since its beginning and helped to develop our original Bard to Go productions, in addition to coordinating the high school matinees, which bring in about 1500 local students every year to see our productions, and providing dramaturgy for our Mainstage shows including Richard III, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cymbeline, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, All’s Well That Ends Well and King Lear.