My passion for theater education comes from my own wonderful experience as a student at Hiram College. I want to give young artists the kind of opportunities and support that I had as an undergrad.

I was lucky enough to go to a college theater program where I heard YES all the time. Every project I wanted to take on was met with, “YES, and how can we help?” I directed every year, I had frequent meetings with my mentor during every project, and I learned a ton.

Some highlights:

My junior year, I wanted to direct <em>Antony and Cleopatra</em>. My department ended up not only approving the project and letting me do it as my capstone, but offering to make it the department’s mainstage production for the spring semester, including a sizable budget and all the design and construction resources that went with it.

In my senior year, I did a series of staged readings of plays that connected with specific academic disciplines, using professors from those disciplines as actors. This allowed other academic departments to connect with the theater and opened the arts as a venue for exploration to their students.

Also in my senior year, the faculty member who taught design and technical classes asked me if I would direct him in <em>Krapp’s Last Tape</em>. He hadn’t acted in decades, but this was a dream role for him, and he said he wanted me to work with him on it. This was a challenging process, but deeply moving and full of growth opportunities for both of us.

Reflections on my work at Hiram College

  • Antony and Cleopatra at Hiram College Theater

    Antony and Cleopatra at Hiram College Theater

    As I’m getting ready to remount (August 24! at the Rose!) my 2018 production of Antony and Cleopatra at Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company, I have been thinking about my first time directing it, back in 2003. The whole thing sounds crazy to me, when I think about it. My undergrad theater department, which I had…


  • Yes, And…

    Yes, And…

    I’ve said before that my college theater was wonderful because they gave me a lot of “yes.” Recently, I was digging through my old files and I found the speech I gave at honors convocation in my senior year at Hiram College. I read it expecting it to be vaguely embarrassing, and was surprised to…


  • Top Five

    Top Five

    Seeing people’s #threefictionalcharacters posts this week (which has been super fun, by the way), I’ve been thinking of other ways to sum up a person in just a few items. Here’s one: What are your top five creations? Ground rules: Listing your children is cheating. It should be stuff you’re proud of and that helped…