teaching portfolio
 

HIGHER EDUCATION


UNIVERSITY of BEDFORDSHIRE, School of Media and Performance (UoB)

Senior Lecturer in Theatre (2014-16), and Course Leader for the BA in Theatre & Professional Practice. In this capacity, I managed a team of academics and artistic practitioners, including a robust staff of visiting lecturers and guest artists, who contribute to the delivery of the course. I taught for Bedfordshire, dating back to 2012, across courses in both Theatre and Performing Arts. As Course Leader, I had the opportunity to revise and re-write the course according to the changing landscape of professional theatre practice with consideration of employability and in accordance with the department’s assessment criteria. Drawing from my own practical experience and research, I collaborated with my colleagues to strengthen the course to the benefit of students’ career outlooks. At the core of the newly revised course, is a heightened focus on developing models of collaboration, gaining practical skills rooted in critical theory and a more robust knowledge base around theatre and performance histories. I actively monitored student engagement, continuously striving to improve teaching and learning based on student and peer feedback, National Student Survey (NSS) results and other university-led initiatives, while establishing links with various community organizations relevant to the field of theatre. Managing and shaping the identity of an undergraduate course alongside institutional pressures requires skills in effectively analyzing, interpreting and presenting research data in order to maintain relevance, quality and a high level of research, teaching and learning within the institution.



UNIVERSITY of READING, Department of Film, Theatre & Television (UoR)

As a Guest Lecturer, I had the opportunity to teach undergraduate modules across all three levels, including Black Box: Introduction to Film & Theatre; Critical Practice in Theatre, and supervising practice-as-research dissertations.



CITY UNIVERSITY of NEW YORK, Brooklyn College Department of Theatre (BC)

As a 2005-06 Teaching Fellow I had the opportunity to teach Introduction to Acting for Non-Majors; as well as serving on the  Review Panel for BFA Acting candidates.



COURESES / UNITS


PROCESS TO PRODUCTION (UoB)

From 2013-16 I designed and taught this year-long unit for first-year Theatre majors. In Process to Production. The class is designed to establish a working ethos for the overall course, establishing a common working language that will be the foundation for their three years of study. Through a term-long devising process, where newspaper headlines are the initial stimulus from which to generate themes of interest, a new play is developed as characters, settings and plotlines manifest.


In 2013, the ensemble (class of ’15) engaged the Bedford Health and Well-being Centre to devise a piece that, at the centre’s request, would address issues around self-harm. A series of workshops at the clinic, interviews with staff, and independent research, led to the collage play, JOURNEY TO CHRYSALIS, which was adapted for a tour across three different perfornance spaces, including the lobby of the well-being centre.


In 2013-14, the ensemble (class of ’16) produced two new works. The first, ‘71013’ was devised from newspaper headlines from their first day of class. Based on actual news stories, the play is set in a primary school, where an unlikely pair take a journey through the news. The second piece emerged from a collaboration with the local Mark Rutherford School where a series of theatre workshops with the students, identified a set of stimuli to create a show that would be created and performed especially for them. The students requests for a suspenseful murder mystery, set in a nightclub, led to the Rashomon-style, RUTHERFORD’S OPENING NIGHT, which was performed in the round.


In 2014-15, the ensemble (class of ’17) produced QUARANTINE BLOCK D1.01, devised from headlines and borrowing structure from Peter Weiss’ MARAT/SADE, the audience is situated as inspectors, observing a cast of characters who have been plagued by the illnesses of The Internet.


In 2015-2016, the ensemble (class of ’18) produced IMBROGLIO, which took the form of a farce, having emerged from student interests in mishaps and misunderstandings around their own reporting back the news in early workshops. The framework of the production situated the audience and characters in a SIMS-like world, with an 8-bit aesthetic, which was designed in collaboration with Jamie Spirito.


Production Projects Archive  //  Sample Curriculum & Lesson Plans


Journey to Chrysalis fragments  //  71013 Script   //  Quarantine Block D1.01 Script //  Imbroglio Script



STAGING NEW WRITING (UoB)

From 2012-16, I designed and taught this year-long unit for third-year Theatre and Performing Arts majors, which focuses on British and American playwrights producing work from 1990 to present. The unit builds skills in textual analysis and introduces innovative approaches to interpreting, and ultimately staging a text, as directors, actors and designers.


Production Projects Archive  //  Sample Curriculum & Lesson Plans



POLITICAL PERFORMANCE (UoB)

From 2012-16, I designed and taught this term-long unit for second-year Theatre and Performing arts majors, which responds to current trends in theatre practice and scholarship relating to analysis and theatre as a political tool and engages students with a range of current debates and issues concerning the complexities of historical research and analysis when applied to theatre and performance. Students study a range of key practitioners (The Living Theatre, Bread and Puppet, Motus, William Pope L, The Wooster Group, among many others) who serve as models of practice for creating, devising and producing political theatre in various contexts. Student research is consolidated in the creation and performance of a piece of devised political theatre, drawing from these models of practice. This unit encourages students to recognise the important role that theatre and performance make regarding political, historical and social commentary, and places a particular emphasis on analysing current political and social issues of concern locally, nationally and internationally.


Sample Curriculum & Lesson Plans




PRODUCTION PROCESSES in MUSICAL THEATRE (UoB)

From 2014-16, I designed and taught this year-long unit for second-year Performing Arts majors, which is a practical exploration of a range of styles and traditions within the genre of musical theatre. The unit involves the devising of an original musical through a deconstructive process of pre-existing musical theatre repertoire, and other music styles and forms appropriate to the selected themes for the specific project. Over two years, I established an on-going collaborations with Dr. Giannandrea Poesio (choreographer and co-teacher) and  professional composer, performer and musical director, Jennifer Lucy Cook, who adapted and arranged the musical score for both student productions. In its second year of delivery. I established a working model for the course to collaborate with the Foundational Degree in Make-Up and Character Design students, who designed the hair and make-up for the cast of twenty, working in line with the overall aesthetic vision for the production. This collaborative model gave students on both courses experience that mirrors industry practices.


During the 2014-15 academic year, we produced DECONSTRUCTING HOPE, which began with the theme of ‘Hope’ as an initial stimulus. We engaged in a series of ongoing discussions and brainstorm sessions, drawing from our own experiences with hope and hopelessness. From this dialogue a series of narrative threads and characters were shaped into a script.


During the 2015-16 academic year, students engaged in an in-depth study of Brecht & Weill’s The Threepenny Opera (based on John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera), and began to deconstruct the classic story, focusing on themes of Corruption, Temptation, Barriers, Stigma and Entrapment in an imagined setting, ‘The Glitter Wasteland.’ In December, the students worked in pairs to develop and perform adaptations of songs from Threepenny, These presentations led to the development of GLITRA ANESTHETICA. Borrowing and adapting songs from Threepenny and other musical theatre repertoire, as well as popular music, this musical theatre ‘mash-up’ has been developed in order to showcase the skills being developed on this unit. Set in the ‘Glitter Wasteland,’ Mayor Ron the Don keeps the people addicted to all forms of glitter, as the sparkle of his glitterganda distracts society from caring about their Mayor’s inherent corruption. But, Mack-Zee, the infamous Hacktivist has a plan to bring him and his greedy wife, Lady Grimace, down. Will the Glitterites awake from their glittercrusted stupor, and join in the revoiution?


Production Projects Archive  //  Sample Curriculum & Lesson Plans


DECONSTRUCTING HOPE Script   //   GLITRA ANESTHETIC script   //   GLITRA Production Concept



SMALL SCALE PRODUCTION (UoB)

In 2015-16, I led and taught a third-year unit, Small Scale Production, where Theatre students form companies, develop missions and devise new material towards a an end of the year festival where they debut their companies. The unit is an intensive third year culmination for the course, meeting six hours per week, where students time is divided between specified workshops with staff and guest artists, production design meetings with technical staff, reflective writing workshops and open studio time. They also have sessions devoted to the business aspects of forming a company, where students gain skills in web design, managing budgets, creating business plans and searching for and filling out festival and grant applications. Throughout the year, students specify their goals, develop their identity and present works-in-progress at a series of formal ‘Scratch Nights.’ As students work collectively within their companies to create new work, they each take on two specific roles for which they are then assessed on criteria that they themselves curate in consultation with myself. As the unit is structured in a way that brings several staff members and visiting lecturers, I actively monitored the progress of each company, aligning their collective missions with their individual assessment criteria and challenging them to take their work further each step of the way.


Sample Curriculum & Lesson Plans



BECOMING A CREATIVE THEATRE PRACTITIONER (UoB)

Taught in 2012-13, this short introductory unit for first-year theatre students focused on research skills, documentation and models of collaboration for practical work.


BLACKBOX: INTRODUCTION TO THEATRE (UoR)

Co-taught with Dr. Lisa Purse in 2012-13, this unit is an introductory class which focuses on processes of meaning-making with a mixture of theory and practice.


CRITICAL PRACTICE in THEATRE (UoR)

Taught in 2013-14. this unit engages second year students in the process of analysing and interpreting a work being staged at the National Theatre (Tirso de Malina’s  DAMNED BY DESPAIR), which is studied in depth, in preparation for conceptualizing and staging their own unique interpretation of excerpts of the work.


PRACTICE-as-RESEARCH DISSERTATION (UoB and UoR)

I have supervised, second-marked and moderated several Practice-as-research undergraduate dissertations at both institutions. Supervised Topics / Projects have included a Verbatim/Tribunal Theatre based on the voices of 9/11 Survivors; an Immersive Roundtable Piece exploring Gender through the work of Oscar Wilde, Morrissey and David Bowie; Exploring Dialect in the Work of Suzan-Lori Parks and Anna Deavere Smith towards a new play using Jamaican-British dialects; The Performance of Feminism in Hip-Hop.


THEATRE & PERFORMING ARTS DISSERTATION (UoB)

I have supervised, second-marked and moderated several Theatre and Performing Arts dissertations. Supervised topics have included: The Use of Technology in Immersive Theatre, Classics Adapted Through A Feminist Lens: Exploring Works by Suzan-Lori Parks and Ellen McLachlan.


INTRODUCTION TO ACTING for NON-MAJORS (BC)

Taught in 2005-05, students are introduced to the vocabulary of the theatre, the power and importance of live performance and the core concepts of the craft of acting.  Students gain an understanding of the actor’s process of creating a role and exercising their imagination in addition to developing risk-taking abilities, observation skills and spontaneity.  These goals are achieved through physical warm-ups, exercises, improvisations, text analysis and research.  The first half of the semester is spent work-shopping monologues from Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires In The Mirror.  The semester’s work culminates with an end-of-the-semester ensemble performance.




WORKSHOPS & LECTURES


Implied Performance Skills in Formal Presentations [designed for BA in Social Work Cours] (UoB)

On Directing [Unit: Performance and Production] (UoB)

Performance-Lecture on Postmodernism [Unit: Practising Ideas] (UoB)

Sound-Scaping and Shaping [Unit: Choreographic Resolutions] (UoB)

Demystifying Text [Unit: Choreographic Resolutions] (UoB)

Auditioning 101 [Unit: Professional Practice in Performing Arts] (UoB)



PRIMARY & SECONDARY EDUCATION


I have over five years experience working in TIE settings, as a freelance Teaching Artist in NYC public schools. I also have worked for the NYC Department of Education as a Substitute Teacher. Below is a summary of the organizations that worked for in various educational capacities and contexts.



VITAL THEATRE COMPANY (VTC)

I worked with Vital Theatre to form a new ‘small school,’ Brooklyn Theatre Arts High School, where I served as Program Coordinator (2007-11). In this capacity, I was a liaison between school administration, faculty and members of the arts organization. I designed and taught theatre arts integration curriculum and programs that built skills in performance, design and technical theatre. I production managed student theatre productions, and contributed to fundraising efforts, which led to the $500,000 renovation of the school’s auditorium into a state-of-the-art theatrical space.


  1. Theatre Integration in 9th Grade English Language Arts (2007-2010)

  2. Theatre Integration in 10th Grade English Language Arts (2008-2010)

  3. Theatre Integration in 11th Grade English Language Arts (2009)


  5. Musical Theatre and Adaptation - 9th Grade (2009-2010)

  6. Acting Scene Study - 10th Grade

  7. Performance Studies: Map Project - 12th Grade (2010-2011)

  8. Theatre & Math: Truth Tables & Playwriting - 11th Grade (2010-2011)

  9. Production Project: FREEDOM MIXTAPE by Aurin Squire (2008)

  10. Playwriting: From Page to Stage - 11th Grade (2009-2011)

  11. BTA PLAYFEST (2009-10)

  12. SCIENTIFIC MISCONCEPTIONS (2010-11)




WOMEN’S PROJECT (WP)

I served as the Education Director for Off-Broadway’s Women’s Project’s arts education program, Ten Centuries of Women Playwrights (2008-11), which provided theatre-making residencies devoted to integrating the work of female playwrights into school curriculum. In addition to designing and teaching the curriculum, I was responsible for hiring and training teaching artists and leading professional development workshops for public school teachers. Managerial duties such as drafting contracts, overseeing payroll and general fundraising were also responsibilities that I assumed in this role.


  1. Extended Day Program: Plays Against Violence

  2. Plays Against Violence Residency at Community Prep High School (2007-08)

  3. Plays Against Violence Residency at Lower East Side Preparatory (2008-2010)

  4. Plays Against Violence Residency at West Side High School (2009-10)

  5. Teacher Training for Plays Against Violence Extended Day Program (2008-2010)


  7. Docudrama & Verbatim Theatre Projects:

  8. City University of New York, Baruch College (2008)

  9. Edward R. Murrow HS, High School for the Humanities (2009-2011)

  10. Bayard Rustin Educational Complex (formerly Humanities High School) (2007-2011)

  11. NYC Vocational Training at Maimonides Hospital (2007-08)




BROOKLYN ARTS COUNCIL (BAC)

Designed and taught performance-based puppetry residencies at various public schools, ages 7-12.


  1. Puppetry & Native American Tales Residency at PS 97 (2010-11)

  2. Theatre & Improvisation Residency at PS 276 (2010-11)




LINCOLN CENTER INSTITUTE (LCI)

From 2007-11, I was on roster as a Teaching Artist for the highly respected Lincoln Center Institute, which is at the forefront of the field of aesthetic education. (Now re-branded as Lincoln Center Education)


  1. Studying Robert Post’s POST COMEDY THEATRE at Fort Lee School Number 3 (Grade 2)

  2. Studying FLY at PS 182 Bi-Lingual School (Grades 1, 4 & 5)

  3. Studying EXIT STAGE LEFT at Yeshiva of Flatbush (Grade 7)




MANHATTAN NEW MUSIC PROJECT (MNMP)

With, Manhattan New Music Project’s EASE: Everyday Arts for Special Education; a federally funded program, I trained special education teachers to use arts-centered curriculum with a focus on autistic populations.