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Faculty and Staff
Full-time Faculty
Andi
Lyons, Professor and Director of Design
and Technology
Janet
Sussman, Associate Professor
Eszter
Szalczer, Associate Professor and Director
of History, Literature, and Criticism
James
Farrell, Assistant Professor and Director
of the Honors Program
Ken
Goldstein, Assistant Professor
Jacquelyn
Roberts, Assistant Professor
Affiliated Faculty
Joel
Berkowitz,
Judaic
Studies Department
Visiting Faculty
Scott Bartley, Visiting Assistant Professor, Technical Director
Adjunct Faculty
Marnie Andrews
Ione
Beauchamp
Anne Croteau
David
Lane
Angela Ledtke
Steve
Madore
Jeffrey
Mousseau
Yvonne
Perry-Hulbert
Leigh
Strimbeck
Eileen Schuyler
Professional Staff
John
Knapp, Scene
Shop Supervisor
Administrative Staff
Michelle
Westfall, Department
Secretary
Veronica
Mott, Keyboard Specialist
II
Biographies
Full-time Faculty
Andi Lyons, Professor
and Director of Design and Technology
Affiliated Faculty, Womens
Studies
e-mail: Andi@albany.edu
Andi Lyons is Professor of Theatre, Director
of Design and Technology, and Resident Lighting
Designer for the University at Albany's Department
of Theatre. She has designed lighting or scenery
for more than a hundred University productions,
and served as the Department’s Technical Director
and Production Supervisor until 1992. Professor
Lyons teaches courses in Lighting Design, Lighting
Technology, Scenic Technology, Technical Design,
Theatrical Drafting, and Stage Management. She
has received both the Chancellor's Award and
the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching
at the University at Albany.
Andi is a long-term, active member of the United
States Institute for Theatre Technology
(USITT), for which she currently serves as a
Member-at-Large on the Board of Directors, Chair
of the Caucus on Human Issues, and on the Membership
Committee. She is also Vice-Commissioner for
Women’s Issues in Technical Production, and
the Project Leader for the Networking Directory
for Women in Theatre. At the University at Albany,
Professor Lyons has also received both the SUNY
Chancellor's Award and the President's Award
for Excellence in Academic Service.
Beyond designing several major productions
on campus each year, Andi has been involved
in freelance activities with many companies.
Some of her favorites include Capital
Repertory Theatre, Tri-Cities
Opera, Stageworks/Hudson,
Elword Productions, Williamstown
Theatre Festival, Shakespeare
in the Park, Leap Productions, the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute,
Keuka Summer Theatre, LaMaMa
E.T.C., and Des
Moines Metro Opera. Andi earned her MFA
at the Yale University School of Drama.
Janet Sussman, Associate
Professor
e-mail: sussman@albany.edu
Janet Sussman is currently Associate Professor
of Costume Design and History at the University
at Albany where she is the resident Costume
Designer. She received her MFA in design from
The University of Texas at Austin studying with
Oscar Brockett and Paul Reinhardt. Outside of
the University recent Off and Off-off Broadway
designs include Five Women Waiting
at the Open
Door Theatre and The Refreshment of
the Spirits at the Provincetown
Playhouse. Regional work includes Brutal
Imagination, Play by Play and
Drawerboy at Stageworks.
Janet has also been the Resident Costume Designer
for the Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU
TISCH School of the Arts for the past seven
years, where she continues to work on new play
development, designing the Goldberg Play finalist
as well as the spring New Works Festival. Janet
is proud of her work for Kennedy Center American
College Theatre Festival in the area of Design.
She earned the Kennedy Center Medal of Honor
for her work as the Chair of Design in Region
II. She currently on the Design Task Force for
Region II working to improve the visibility
and training of young designers. In her spare
time she co-owns The White Crane Gallery in
Omaha Nebraska.
Eszter Szalczer,
Associate Professor and
Director of History, Literature, and Criticism
Affiliated Faculty, Womens
Studies
e-mail: szalczer@albany.edu
Eszter Szalczer earned her Doctoral Degree
in Comparative Literature, Eötvös
Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
and Ph.D. in Theatre, City University of New
York. Professor Szalczer teaches courses in
dramatic literature, theatre history, dramaturgy
and research. She previously lectured at various
universities in Europe (Sweden and Hungary)
and in the US at New York University and Marymount
Manhattan College. Professor Szalczer's research
areas include modern Scandinavian and East-European
drama and theatre and she has published internationally
on the work of Swedish playwright August Strindberg.
Her piece "Nature's Dream Play: Modes
of Vision and Strindberg's Re-definition of
the Theatre" (Theatre Journal 2001)
was awarded the 2002 Gerald Kahan Scholar's
Prize by The American Society for Theatre Research.
She is recipient of many other prestigious research
awards, including fellowships from the American-Scandinavian
Foundation and the National Endowment for the
Humanities. Dr. Szalczer’s recent book is entitled
Writing Daughters: August Strindberg's Other
Voices (Norvik Press, 2008). Her work in
progress includes a critical introduction to
Strindberg to be published as a volume in the
Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists
series. She is also founding member of the “August
in January” Festivals in New York City, which
include theatrical productions of Strindberg’s
works and scholarly symposia in conjunction
with the productions. Prof. Szalczer has worked
as a dramaturge on theatre productions both
nationally and internationally.
James Farrell, Assistant
Professor and Director of the Honors Program
e-mail: jpf@albany.edu
James Farrell is the author of the plays Here
and There; Old Times, Good Times; In the Recovery
Lounge; Bing and Walker; Migrant Moon; Donnie;
Djibouti; Purple Haze; Kelly, Flying
Blind; Correspondence; A Believer in Those Things
Which Cannot Be Proven to Be True; and
Transplant, Black & White & Blue and Velocity of Geography,
a full length work in progress. His plays have
been produced at Circle Repertory Company in
New York City; South
Coast Repertory in Los Angeles; Northlight
Theatre in Chicago; The
Cleveland Playhouse; Jewish Repertory Theatre
in New York City; Seattle
Public Theatre; Theatre
of the Riverside Church in New York City;
City Theatre
of Miami; City
Playhouse in Los Angeles; Peterborough
Players in Peterborough, New Hampshire;
and Stageworks/Hudson
Theatre Company in New York. He has been
a resident playwright at Circle Repertory Company
in New York City and has served as Literary
Manager for Circle Repertory and for the New
York State Theatre Institute in Albany. Mr.
Farrell is the recipient of a Drama League of
New York Playwriting Grant and a New York State
Council on the Arts Individual Artist Award
and has been a writer in residence at Yaddo,
the
MacDowell Colony, Blue
Mountain Center,and the Sundance Playwrights
Laboratory. He has also served as a script reader
for the Royal
Court Theatre in London and as a juror for
the Edna St. Vincent Millay Colony for the Arts
playwriting jury. He currently teaches Playwriting
at New York University's Tisch School of the
Arts Dramatic Writing Program and at the University
at Albany/SUNY. Mr. Farrell is the Co-Founder,
Co-Artistic Director and a Resident Playwright
in the Hudson Valley Theatre
Collective,
a new play development workshop initiative for
primarily New York City based playwrights, directors,
actors and designers. He is an active member
of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas
and the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc. and
is a member playwright at the Ensemble
Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit in New York
City.
Ken Goldstein,
Assistant Professor
e-mail: kgoldstein@albany.edu
Ken Goldstein is an Assistant Professor of Set Design for the Theatre Department. New to the University Fall 2005, he had taught for a few years at Hofstra University, where he received his BA in Drama. After graduating Brandeis University with an MFA in Set Design, Ken began designing in regional theatres and in New York. Ken is the Resident Set Designer at Northern Stage where he designs a number of shows each season. His regional credits include productions at Capital Repertory, Barrington Stage Company, Skylight Opera Theatre, Seaside Music Theatre, Foothills Theatre, American Stage, Saint Michael's Playhouse, Orlando Rep, and This season at The New York State Theatre Institure. He has also been a guest artist at Hofstra University, New Jersey City University and at LSU—Baton Rouge. New York productions include the award winning NYMF show Isabelle and the Pretty Ugly Spell, Chuck Mee’s Trojan Women: a love story, and Orestes for Lightbox Theatre Company, The Lady Next Door for the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre, the American Girl's Revue at the Americ an Girl Store in on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and Dreyfus in Rehearsal at the Beckett Theatre with director Chad Larabee. As an associate set designer at the Tom Schwinn Studio in New York City, he has designed for such projects as the Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary Special at Madison Square Garden for CBS, The Hispanic Heritage Awards for NBC at the Kennedy Center, the NFL Draft on ESPN, A&E's Live By Request (Neil Diamond), Bravo's Best of Broadway, and a number of VH1's Storytellers. Ken is a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829.
Jacquelyn Roberts,
Assistant Professor
e-mail: jr411498@albany.edu
Jackie Roberts has flourished for several years
as a member of the Crossroads
Theatre Company, Arena Stage and South Coast
Repertory, where she received a Southern California
Theatre Critics Award for 1994. She has been
a member of BLACKSMYTHS, the African American
writers, collective at the Mark Taper Forum;
and was a finalist for the undance Playwriting
Festival. As an actor, she spent several years
on the Warner Bros.’ sitcom, The Steve Harvey
Show, as well as NBC’s The West Wing.
She received her graduate degree from the Yale
University School of Drama. Lick of the
Knife was part of a joint workshop with
the Theatre Department and The New York State
Writers Institute as well as performed as a
reading for Shirley Fishman of the La Jolla
Playhouse.
Visiting Faculty
Scott Bartley
e-mail: productiontd@gmail.com
Scott Bartley is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Technical Theatre, Technical Director, and Production Manager for the University at Albany’s Department of Theatre. He has worked for the Connecticut Repertory Theatre for the past 3 seasons. Scott is a recent graduate of UCONN where he received his MFA in Technical Direction. Scott started his summer residency with the Bay Street Theatre Festival in 2007.
Adjunct Faculty
Marnie Andrews
e-mail:mandrews@albany.edu
Marnie has a wide-ranging career as actor, director, singer, writer, and teacher. In recent years, she has starred in several world premieres of new plays.
She guest-starred in numerous TV series and movies of the week, including E.R, Murder One, Jag and Wonder Years, and had a recurring role on Reasonable Doubts for two years with Mark Harmon and Marlee Matlin on She’s performed in regional theatres over thirty years in such diverse roles as Guenevere in Camelot and George in The Killing of Sister George. Much of her career has been in developing new plays.
Among her directing credits, Marnie directed Steven Wolfson’s adaptation of Trojan Women, which was chosen for an international theatre audience at the Getty Museum in LA. She conceived and dramaturged a piece called View from the Hudson which was awarded a Geraldine Dodge Foundation grant for the NJ company, Randy James Dance Works. Marnie taught for NYU and USC Graduate Film Schools. At NYU, she directed Three Sisters, and A Piece of My Heart. Marnie served for several years on the board of the National Repertory Theatre Foundation, which awarded yearly grants for new plays. She is currently honorary board member and singer with the New York City Master Chorale.
Ione Beauchamp
e-mail: ione@albany.edu
photo by William Jaeger
Ione Beauchamp has taught Dance and Movement
for the Theatre Department since 1999. She has
danced with Wire Monkey Dance (on scaffolding)
since 2000 (www.wiremonkeydance.com).
Currently she is also a member of several dance
labs, including the Troy based ESL (Emergent
Scores Lab). Prior to teaching at UAlbany and
moving upstate, Ione lived in NYC, where she
received her BA in Dance from Barnard College,
her MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts,
and danced with numerous choreographers, including
Bill Young, Peggy Peloquin, Danny Lepkoff, Diane
Frank & Debby Riley, and Nina Weiner. She
collaborated with Teri Carter in the creation
of their duet Ghost Girl! , and was a founding
and continuing member of Carter’s Mixed-Ability
group Mobility Junction (MJ works with integrated
groups of physically disabled and able-bodied
movers). Her own choreography was shown at Danspace
Project, Judson Church, PS 122, Prospect Park
Picnic House, among others. More recently, Ione
has directed performance work for the Macau
Fringe Festival, WACFest,
Why Melville Matters Now, SomaFest
LA; as well as, choreographing for the Theatre
Department: Hippolytus, Hair, Midsummer’s
Night Dream, The Ophelia Project, and directing
Collective Momentum, the annual Theatre Department’s
dance & performance project. Ione has a
background in Somatic Movement Education with
certifications in Body-Mind Centering? and The
Trager? Approach. She is a Registered Movement
Educator (ISMETA),
as well as a registered yoga teacher (Yoga
Alliance), and was certified to the apprentice
level in Gyrotonic/Gyrokinesis?. She studied
Authentic Movement intensively with Zoë
Avstreih among others, and has been practicing
and teaching contact improvisation for almost
20 years. This past year she started making
Video Art.
Anne Croteau
e-mail: annecroteau@hotmail.com
David Lane
e-mail: dlane@albany.edu
A native of Canada, David Lane has taught acting
and performance workshops in Massachusetts,
New York, Alberta, and at the renowned Dell’Arte
School of Physical Theatre in California.
Lane studied extensively with his mentor, well-known
improvisational acting instructor Keith Johnstone
(inventor of Theatre Sports and author of Impro),
and later became a regular performer with Johnstone’s
popular Loose
Moose Theatre Company in Calgary.
In addition to his work as a performer, Lane
has directed productions for One
Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo;
Alberta Theatre Project’s Out of Bounds; the
California
Institute of the Arts; and the Edmonton
Fringe Festival. In New York City, David
has directed work at HERE
Space; Nuyorican
Poet’s Café; the
American Theater for Actors; Soho
Playhouse; and Synchronicity
Space.
Lane is a core member and co-founder of the
internationally recognized and critically acclaimed
Old Trout
Puppet Workshop, a performance company based
in Calgary, Alberta. In addition, Lane’s street
performances of Punch and Judy have
toured coast to coast in the both the US and
Canada, and have been performed at NYC’s
Lincoln Center’s Out-of-Doors festival and
the Edmonton
International Street Performing Festival.
In the Spring 2007 semester, Lane directed
the Department of Theatre's production of The
Lady's Not For Burning, by Christopher
Fry, and teaching a special topics course in
Improvisation, and a course in Play Analysis.
Lane received an MFA in Theatre (Directing)
from Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and
a BFA in Drama from the University of Calgary.
Angela Ledtke
e-mail: angelatheresaryan.gmail.com
Steve
Madore
e-mail: sjmadore05@yahoo.com
Steve Madore received his MA in Theatre History
and Dramatic Criticism from the State University
of New York at Albany and has completed several
years of coursework as a doctoral student in
the Department of Theatre and Drama at Indiana
University, Bloomington. His production interests
include directing and dramaturgy. Steve is most
proud of his directorial work on Robert
of Sicily, a reconstructed medieval drama,
which had its world premier at the 2003 Bloomington
Early Music Festival before traveling to
the University of Toronto as part of the Poculi
Ludique Societas’ Digby Mary Magdelene and Saint’s Play Festival. His favorite work
as a Production Dramaturg includes an experimental
production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Exception
and the Rule at SUNY Albany and a production
of Lysistrata. At Indiana University.
Steve’s work on this production earned him an
invitation to participate in the Dramaturgy
Debut Panel at the 2003 conference of the Association
of Theatre in Higher Education in NYC. Steve
has taught many theatre courses at both SUNY
Albany and Indiana University including Fundamentals
of Acting, Voices of Diversity in Contemporary
American Theatre, Great Drama on Film and Video,
20th Century Non-Realistic Drama, Plays in Process,
and Appreciation of the Theatre. As an adjunct
in the English Department at SUNY Albany, Steve
has also taught Drama of Disability, Theatre
of War, Reading Literature, and Growing Up In
America.
Jeffrey
Mousseau
e-mail: jmousseau@verizon.net
UAlbany Director credits: Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, The Birthday Party and Famous by Their Birth: Shakespeare’s Power Plays. NYC: world premiere of Aunt Leaf at HERE Arts Center in January 2010. He is member of HERE’s Artist in Residence Program and he also recently launched StartHERE: Innovative Theater for Young People, presenting Denmark’s Sofie Krog Teater’s puppet performance, Diva. Regional credits: 110 Flights, Proctors Theater, Schenectady, and I Am My Own Wife, Stageworks, Hudson. Boston credits: Founding Artistic Director, The Coyote Theater, recipient of Elliot Norton and Independent Reviewers of New England Awards. Coyote directing credits include: Miss Julie, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Bash, American Notes, Marisol and Fool for Love. He has served as a grant reviewer and jurist on numerous panels for the Lower Manhattan and Massachusetts Cultural Councils. BA, American Studies, University of Notre Dame; MFA, Theatre, Brooklyn College.
Yvonne
Perry-Hulbert
email: yvonne@yvonneperry.com
Yvonne is a working actress with over 15 years
of professional experience, and is a proud member
of SAG, AFTRA and Actors Equity. She spent 5
years as a contract lead playing “Rosanna” on
the CBS soap As The World Turns, and
has appeared in several sit-coms, evening dramas,
and independent films. She has an extensive
list of commercial clients as well, often working
in the fields of radio, voice/over and narration.
She is seen locally as the spokeswoman for Taft
Furniture and TWTV’s The Real Estate Showcase.
Yvonne has many theatre credits as well, and
has appeared onstage with Capital Rep, NYSTI,
Oldcastle Theatre Co., Stageworks/Hudson, The
Northeast Theatre, Theatre 88, Theatre 440 at
Proctors, and many others. She holds a BFA from
Adelphi University and an MA from UAlbany, and
has studied with ACT in San Francisco and The
Royal National Theatre in London. Please visit website www.yvonneperry.com
Eileen Schuyler
email:
ERSchuyler@AOL.com
A professional actress for 30 years, Eileen is a proud member of Actor’s Equity, SAG and AFTRA. She has appeared on regional, New York and international stages, including Soho Rep, Studio Arena Theater, Fulton Opera House, Capital Rep, Stageworks/Hudson, Proctors Theater, Queens Theater in the Park, Theater at Hubbard Hall, The Kennedy Center, Williamstown Theater Festival, the Producers Club, as well as theaters in Rome, Milan and Tel Aviv. A founding member of the New York State Theater Institute, she has performed 25 shows with that company. She was named Best Actress, both by Metroland and the Albany Times-Union, and her performances have been included on the “Year’s Best” lists of every area newspaper.
Eileen is the Artistic Director of Theater Voices, now in its 21 st season, and directed Benefactors, Educating Rita, A Cheever Evening, Candida and The Road To Mecca for that company. She also performed live broadcasts of their productions of Trojan Women and Mrs. Klein across a five-state region for Northeast Public Radio. Other broadcast work includes commercial, documentary and educational voiceovers; narration for Lost Landscapes on PBS, and the Warner Home Classics audio book of Sherlock's Secret Life, for which she won an AUDIE Award in 2000.
She has created three original adaptations for the stage: A Bintel Brief (for the Yiddish Book Center at Hampshire College), Alive, Alive, Oh!, and Spoon River Anthology. In addition to her work at the University at Albany, Eileen has served as a communications trainer for New York State Defenders Institute, and offered theater workshops for NYSTI, the Robert C. Parker School and Actors Collaborative. She received her MA from SUNY Empire State College, and continued her professional training at Shakespeare & Co., HB Studios, and the School for Film & Television.
Leigh Strimbeck
e-mail: strimchak@berk.com
Leigh is an actor, director, writer and acting teacher. Plays directed include: Fools Rush In, Voice Of The Prairie, Sea Marks, The Nest, Daytrips, The Baltimore Waltz and Death Of A Salesman for the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (BTE) in Pennsylvania. During her 12 year tenure with BTE Leigh acted in dozens of plays and served as Ensemble Director for 3 years. Other plays directed include Children Of A Lesser GOD, On The Verge, Tonight We Improvise, The Mystery Of Irma Vep and Private Eyes for various regional theaters. She was co-writer and director of Berwick, America and This House Builded, both history plays commissioned by their communities. One man shows: Here Be Dragons, co-written with Paul Outlaw; Heavy Mettle and Working Class, both written and performed by Richard Hoehler. Other work has included a year touring with a children’s theater company in Sweden, 3 years on the theatre panel of the National Endowment for the Arts, and a USIA tour to Africa (with BTE). Leigh has also worked as a teaching artist for the Capital Region Center for Arts in Education, and a coach for the New York State Defender’s Institute. She is writer and director of a one act play, Waiting For Joe, performed at Theater 440, Proctor’s in 2007.
Currently she is an adjunct professor of acting at SUNY Albany, and an Artist in Residence at Russell Sage College in Troy, New York.
Most recently, Leigh created and directed Mirror Mirror with the women of Russell Sage. This original work examines self image and the media, and the pressure for women to be perfect in today’s society. MIRROR MIRROR is available to come to schools in the 09-10 school year. In the upcoming year Leigh will also write and direct a new work about issues impacting young women in the US.
Leigh is also a certified yoga instructor, and whenever possible works with her husband the brilliant sound designer Joe Jurchak. They have two boys, Jan and Griff, who play a variety of instruments as will as playing with their dog, Oscar Wilde.
Professional Staff
John
Knapp, Scene Shop Supervisor
e-mail: jek86@albany.edu
Administrative Staff
Michelle
Westfall, Department Secretary and webmaster
e-mail: mwestfall@uamail.albany.edu
Veronica
Mott, Keyboard Specialist II
e-mail: vmott@albany.edu
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