Recent News

On July 27-29, UT Theatre and Dance faculty, students and alumni travelled to Seattle to attend and present at the 2023 American Alliance for Theatre & Education (AATE) conference. 

Faculty member Gesel Mason has received a summer residency with Bates Dance Festival. Mason, along with Ph.D. candidate Yunina Barbour-Payne, alum Love Muwwakkil (M.F.A. 2023) and their collaborators, will use this time to workshop her project Yes, And in preparation for a performance the following summer.

Current B.F.A. in Acting students Mia Hsiung Nguyen and Dominic Gross are spending the summer months performing in Illinois Shakespeare Festival's 2023 season. As acting interns, Nguyen and Gross have rehearsed and performed alongside their fellow interns and a company of professional actors, including alum Geoffrey Warren Barnes II (M.F.A. 2013).

Alum Lane Michael Stanley (M.F.A. 2020) has accepted a ten month long artist residency with coLAB Arts and Mission First Housing Group. Through this residency, Stanley will develop new works in collaboration with the communities at Mission First Housing Group's permanent supportive housing facilities.

Current B.F.A. in Dance major Evan Carlson has spent his summer on the stage at Woodstock Playhouse in New York in multiple productions. He held the principal role of "Motel" in Fiddler on the Roof and has also performed in Monty Python’s Spamalot; Hello, Dolly! and a TYA production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Zilker Theatre Productions presents Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical, co-produced by Jason Kruger (B.F.A. 1996) with costume design by Jessi Rose (M.F.A. 2019). The outdoor production will be on stage July 7-August 12, 2023.

Current Ph.D. candidate Yunina Barbour-Payne has received first prize in Black Theatre Network's S. Randolph Edmonds Young Scholars Competition in the graduate division. Her award-winning paper is entitled "Costuming for an Affrilachian Stage: The Color Purple in Crystal Wilkinson's Blackberries, Blackberries."

Alum Jill Young (B.F.A. 2020) performed at the 2023 Hollywood Fringe Festival and walked away with multiple awards. Her play Little Starts Youth Theatre Presents: Macbeth (A Solo Show) won the 2Cents' Immersive Worlds Award and a Best of the Broadwater Award, earning her two additional performances.

Students in faculty member Kate Freer's Integrated Media Studio class designed immersive projections for Fusebox Festival 2023. We spoke with Freer and some of her students about working with Fusebox and piecing together these vivid installations.