Department of Theatre Arts

News and Events

Posted January 14, 2013

Department of Theatre Arts Hosts Kennedy Center Regional Theatre Festival

See the full news article in The Towerlight.  Read here.

Posted December 20, 2012

Student Video Project Promotes Department of Theatre Arts

See theatre minor James Tunney's video project about the Department of Theatre Arts.  Watch here.

City Paper: Top Ten Stage

Department of Theatre Arts Points of Pride

3. The Brothers Size, by Tarell Alvin McCraney (Everyman Theatre)

"Daniel Ettinger’s set—the grimy metal of a barely breaking-even auto shop in rural Louisiana—sets the mood for this all-male production where the choices are as stark and unforgiving as the pipes and machinery around them. The shop’s owner has just hired his brother, fresh from prison, to prevent him from going back, but the shop isn’t much friendlier than prison was, and the brother would rather smoke weed and sleep late. (GH)"

Professor Daniel Ettinger teaches a range of design courses and serves as the coordinator of the design and production track. He is a resident set designer at Everyman Theatre, and works regularly at several other professional theatres.

5. Office Ladies, by Lola B. Pierson (Acme Corporation)

"An original production by one of Baltimore’s newest companies, this play is gorgeous on all counts: The superb script, set, acting, and music combine to create a stunning, philosophical vision of a floating world. (Baynard Woods)"

Office Ladies was created as part of Lola Pierson's final project for her MFA in Theatre at Towson University. The production was co-produced by the Department of Theatre Arts.

City Paper’s full 2012 Top Ten Stage listing.

Posted November 6, 2012

Department of Theatre Arts' Production of The Glass Menagerie in the News

91.5 FM, WBJC interviews The Glass Menagerie director, Professor Stephen Nunns.

The Glass Menagerie featured in The Towerlight

Posted October 16, 2012

Japnese Theatre Artist Toshiki Okada Works With Towson University Theatre Students

Acclaimed Japanese playwright, director and choreographer Toshiki Okada, founder of the theatre company Chelfitsch, led an intensive workshop for Towson University theatre students Spetember 23^rd and 24^th, following the successful production of two of his pieces at the recent Philly Live Arts and Fringe Festival. His collaboration with Pig Iron Theater Company, Zero Cost House, and his own piece Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner and the Farewell Speech received glowing praise from audiences.

With Chelfitsch, Mr. Okada’s distinctive methodology of creating plays includes hyper-colloquial Japanese and unique choreography. He likes to experiment with resonating sound, lighting, text and movement off of one another without necessarily unifying them. In the workshop, he led the students in an exploration of memory that put an emphasis on the synthesis of images to create a clear story for the audience through gesture and sound. Students were asked to verbally and physically take the others on a tour of their own homes. They were challenged to decrease the amount of images used in the descriptions, comparing them to film edits. “An audience perceives a more solid image once the total number of images, movements or “cuts” is decreased and that movement can be repeated or drawn out. We must take into account how being seen by an audience changes how we present a piece,” Okada explained.

Toshiki Okada is the winner of the 2007 Kenzaburo Oe Prize for his collection of novels, the 2005 Yokohama Award for Art and Cultural Encouragement, the 2005 Toyota Choreography Award for Air Conditioner (Cooler) and the prestigious 49^th Kishida Drama Award for his play Five Days in March. He was assisted in the workshop by Towson University Theatre Faculty member Naoko Maeshiba, who also translated for Mr. Okada.

Posted September 21, 2012

Best of Baltimore 2012: Department of Theatre Arts Points of Pride

Best Actor: Bruce Nelson
Department of Theatre Arts alumnus, named Honored Alumnus in 2001

Best Actress: Danielle Robinette
Department of Theatre Arts, Class of 2009

Best Production: Private Lives at Everyman Theatre
The cast featured Associate Professor Peter Wray and Honored Alumnus Bruce Nelson. Professor Daniel Ettinger designed the set.

Best Theater Company: Everyman Theatre

Professors Jay Herzog and Daniel Ettinger are resident designers at the theatre. Professor Steven Satta and Associate Professor Peter Wray have worked at the theatre, and many alumni work there or regularly appear in their productions. Kyle Prue, who teaches in the department, is an actor and founding member, as well as the production manager.

Ian Belknap Artistic Director of The Acting Company 2012.

Posted September 13, 2012

Towson University Department of Theatre Arts Alumnus Ian Belknap Appointed New Artistic Director of the Acting Company

Ian Belknap, a 2006 graduate of the Towson University Department of Theatre Arts, has been named as the new Artistic Director of The Acting Company. Margot Harley, who founded the company along with legendary director and actor Houseman forty years ago, announced the appointment. “We’re a Company of young actors – founded forty years ago with the young Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, David Schramm and David Ogden Stiers right out of Juilliard – and it is appropriate that we begin our next 40 years with a vibrant young talent as our artistic leader,” said Ms. Harley, who will move from Producing Artistic Director to Producer. Harley and Houseman, who is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Orson Welles and his Oscar-winning role as Professor Charles Kingsfield in the film The Paper Chase, created The Acting Company from the first graduating class of the Drama Division at the Juilliard School. The company is known not only for the prominent American actors it counts among its alumni, but also for its educational outreach programs. The Acting Company performs each year in over 40 cities to audiences of 70,000 and reaches more than 30,000 students with its arts education programs. Its numerous awards include the Obie Award, Los Angeles Critics Circle Award and a Tony award for Excellence in Theatre in 2003.

As a student at Towson University, Belknap appeared in several main stage productions, including

Ian Belknap in the Department of Theatre Arts Production of Waiting for Godot (2004) directed by Peter Wray.

The Servant of Two Masters, Hair, and Waiting for Godot. He was awarded the John Glover Scholarship. He directed David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago and was a leading force behind the student producing group Free Space. Belknap also began his work in the professional theatre through internships with the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival and CENTERSTAGE. While a directing intern at CENTERSTAGE, Belknap began working with director Mark Lamos. He would go on to assist Lamos at several other theatres throughout the country. Belknap also worked at the New York Theatre Workshop, Primary Stages, New Victory Theater, Guthrie Theater, The Kennedy Center, Rep Stage, Everyman Theatre, Young Audiences, Prince Music Theater, and Philadelphia Theater Company, before beginning work at The Acting Company in 2008. His production of Damascus, written and performed by Andrew Weems, ran off-Broadway. Damascus was part of the inaugural WRITE ON! Festival that Belknap created to feature new plays written by The Acting Company alumni actors turned playwrights. He directed The Comedy of Errors which premiered at the Guthrie Theater before a two year national tour. His upcoming production of Of Mice and Men will also tour as part of The Acting Company’s 40th anniversary season. Since 2011, Belknap has overseen The Acting Company’s education department, forging new relationships with Teachers College, Columbia University and Lincoln Center Theater. The partnership with Teachers College gave rise to a 40 week Shakespeare program for kindergartners at The Community School, a public school in Harlem. Lincoln Center Theater presented The Acting Company’s production of Julius Caesar in 2012 for students across New York City.

Belknap says of his education at Towson University, “The Department of Theater Arts taught me clarity. Ambiguity begets boredom. Clarity creates experience. I learned that difference from a constellation of opportunities as a student actor, historian, electrician, producer and director. The department gave me room to explore a variety of interests and that freedom led me to directing. This process from general to specific was ushered by the extraordinary faculty, in particular Professor Dr. Robyn Quick and Associate Professor Peter Wray, the finest jurors of clarity.”

See the announcement on The Acting Company's website here.

Posted July 10, 2012

Towson University Theatre Alumnus Selected for the Drama Desk Nominating Committee

Towson University Department of Theatre Arts alumnus Adrian Wattenmaker was selected to be one of six distinguished New York theatre critics and educators who will chose the nominees for the 2012 – 2013 Drama Desk awards. Since his graduation from Towson University in 2005, Adrian has worked extensively as an actor and director. He directed plays at the New York Theatre Workshop, 440 Studio, and Brooklyn WordShop. He served as an assistant director for Austin Pendleton and David Schweizer. Adrian also taught acting at Brooklyn College, New York Film Academy, University of Nevada, Reno, and the School of Creative and Performing Arts, where he is the director of their Brooklyn Campus. Adrian is currently completing his MFA in Directing at Brooklyn College.

Adrian was in the theatre studies track in the Department of Theatre Arts at Towson University. His directing projects as a student included Betrayed by Everyone and Tales, as well as a development internship at Baltimore Theatre Project, and a dramaturgy internship at CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore. He was selected to receive the department’s Steve Yeager Scholarship. Mr. Yeager, a fellow Towson theatre alumnus and director, teaches Acting for the Camera at the university.

The Drama Desk awards are among the most important New York theater honors. The awards recognize productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway.

Seven local stage productions make "City Paper's" Top 10 in "The Year in Stage"

Theatre professor Daniel Ettinger worked on scenic design for four plays in the top 10, including "Two Rooms," "Apartment 213," "All My Sons" and "The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?".

"Apartment 213," conceived and written by MFA in Theatre candidate Joseph Ritch, was performed as a co-production between Iron Crow Theatre and TU's MFA in Theatre Program. Faculty member Stephen Satta is the artistic director for the Iron Crow Theatre.

"Sideshow" was produced by MFA in Theatre graduate Jose David Gregory's company, Teatro101.

Theatre graduate Andrew Peters directed "Antarctica," produced by Glass Mind Theatre Co., for which Peters is also artistic director.

"Playing Dead," a product of the New Russian Drama Project at TU, was translated by theatre professor Juanita Rockwell and directed by Fulbright Scholar in Residence Yury Urnov.

Two MFA students are winners in the City Paper’s short fiction and poetry contents

Donna Sellinger, MFA Theatre ’ 10, won 1st place for her short fiction, “The Universal Sewer,” and Lola Pierson, a current MFA theatre student, won 3rd place for her short fiction, “Good for What Ails Ya,” in the City Paper’s 2010 short fiction and poetry content.

• Read Sellinger’s “The Universal Sewer.”
• Read Pierson’s “Good for What Ails Ya.”

The Theatre Arts Department congratulates them and is very proud of their accomplishments.

Theatre professor Robyn Quick receives Elliott Hayes Award from The Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas

The Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) recognized the extraordinary achievement of dramaturg Robyn Quick, professor of theatre at Towson University, at its annual conference held in Banff, Canada, June 20-July 1. Quick received the Elliott Hayes Award and a $500 prize for spearheading the New Russian Drama Project, a major effort to bring contemporary Russian drama to an American audience. The project brought together TU's theatre department and Philip Arnoult's Center for International Theatre Development. With Quick serving as lynch pin, the two organizations partnered in a series of commissioned translations, classroom  studies, productions at the professional and university level, and a series of artistic collaborations and exchanges.

The project focuses on theatrical work created by Russian artists who came of age after the fall of the USSR. Says Quick: "Many artists and scholars still know little about this movement and have limited access to the plays themselves in translation. As a result, the plays have not yet found their place on U.S. stages or in academic study. Our project hopes to acquaint more people in the United States with this writing and to use the plays as a point of departure for enriching our understanding of the current social and cultural concerns of the Russian people. Given the historic tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as the environment of misunderstanding that still permeates our country's relationship with Russia, insights we might gain about this culture from the plays seem particularly timely and necessary." Read more.

Adam Burke noted in New York Times article

Adam Nicholas Burke graduated from Towson University in 2009 with a bachelor's degree in theatre design. He now works at the Charleston, S.C.-based marketing agency Rawle Murdy Associates as social media manager. He represents several major clients including artnet.com, Carnival Cruise Lines, CARTA, Cheeseburger in Paradise, MeadWestVaco, Nickelodeon, Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co., South Carolina State Port Authority and Wild Dunes Resort. Adam was mentioned in this New York Times article.

"It was during my first job interview that I discovered the true value of the education I had received from the Theatre Program at Towson University. Where others may have been sweating through their interview suits, I was eerily collected. The time I had spent pushing my boundaries in the acting courses at TU had taught me how to develop a character with a clear goal as a way to work through uncomfortable situations; I played Happily Employed and there were no obstacles that could keep him from achieving his objective of landing the perfect job. After knocking the interview out of the park and landing the job, the writing and research skills I had developed while preparing my Bachelor's Thesis have helped me successfully explain complex social media concepts to my clients. My experiences at TU working with teams of students to produce plays and outreach programs have taught me how to work collaboratively with my colleagues to accomplish tasks. Although I may not have ended up working in the theatre Industry, the most important lesson I have taken with me from Towson University's theatre program is that 'All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.' "      

Department of Theatre Arts
Center for the Arts, Room 3037 (map)
Hours: Monday - Friday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Phone: 410-704-2792
Fax: 410-704-3914
E-mail: theatre@towson.edu