One Year Later…

Sorry for the lack of updates this past year! It’s been a busy one (with a busier year looming)…but I promise to be more diligent with what’s going on in my world.

Here are some of the highlights:

  • I survived my first year as a junior faculty member and Director of Theatre at Southern Arkansas University.
    • Our 2016-2017 Theatre season broke all the records in terms of attendance and ticket sales, with our smash production of The Little Mermaid being the single most attended show in SAU history (over 5000 people came under the sea with us during its run). Pictures from Our Town and The Little Mermaid are up over on my directing page.
    • Our student population nearly doubled over the year–with our largest freshman class ever (though this year’s incoming class may top them yet).
    • Our New York Theatre Experience was an unqualified success, with four of our upperclassmen spending a week in New York City, shadowing professional artists behind the scenes at shows like The Phantom of the OperaSchool of RockWicked. One student, Alycya Thomas, was chosen to serve as a summer intern at The Lion King on Broadway where she actually got to call part of the show one night!

  • The play I co-wrote with Karen Murphy, Parched, was awarded Second Place in Stage West Theatre’s Southwest Playwriting Competition.
  • I directed two premiere productions as part of the Hot Mess Female Playwrights Festival produced by Little Black Dress INK’s ONSTAGE Project—Anne Flanagan’s Three Ghosts of Elizabeth Bathory and CJ Erhlich’s Co-Workers.
Elizabeth Bathory (Amber Bosworth) waxes historic about her life through a feminist lens to unimpressed high school student, Mina (Annabelle Veatch).
Batman (Bruce Thomson) and Batgirl (Judy Stahl) fight crime and workplace mundaneness while hanging around in Conundrum’s lair.
Playwright CJ Erhlich, Bruce Thomson, Judy Stahl, and me.