Recent News

After being awarded a MacDowell Fellowship in the spring of 2020, faculty member and playwright Dr. Lisa B. Thompson will join 46 other artists for a MacDowell Summer Residency, aimed at identifying and celebrating emerging and established art-makers and providing them with a creative space free of distractions. 

This past May, faculty member KJ Sanchez teamed up with Salvage Vanguard Theater and The University of Texas at Austin through her company American Records to present Un Año, an immersive documentary theatre project featuring the work of multiple UT Theatre and Dance artists.

Annie Jump and the Library of Heaven by alumna Reina Hardy's (M.F.A. 2014) will be presented at The VORTEX Theatre this summer as part of it's rolling world premiere through National New Play Network. On stage June 3 - July 4, 2021, this production will be directed by Marcus McQuirter (Ph.D. 2012) and Rudy Ramirez (M.A. 2012) under producing artistic director Bonnie Cullum (M.F.A. 1989), with contributions by staff members Clarissa Smith and Desireé Humphries and featuring graduating senior Christina Blake as "Althea."

Ph.D. candidate in Performance as Public Practice Alexis Riley was recently selected as a 2021 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow, the largest and most prestigious award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences addressing questions of ethical and religious values.

Faculty member and renowned playwright/director KJ Sanchez will be directing the world premiere of her play Need Your Love as part of Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's 2021-2022 season. This musical docudrama about the life of R&B singer Little Wille John will run from October 30-December 12, 2021.

Faculty members Erica Gionfriddo and J.E. Johnson were among eight faculty members from the College of Fine Arts to receive COVID Transformational Online Instruction Contributions Awards, a recently established award presented by the Provost's Office to acknowledge faculty and staff who created innovative pedagogical resources and programs when transferring their classes into an online setting.

The 2021 Austin Latinx New Play Festival, presented by Teatro Vivo and ScriptWorks, celebrates all-new works of theatre written, directed and workshopped by Latinx artists, many of whom come from our UT Theatre and Dance community. This year's virtual presentation will take place May 13-15, 2021.

The Ethnic and Third World Literatures Review of Books, “Everyday Anarchy”: Communities in Action during a Pandemic of Unrest includes reviews written by current students Zachariah Ezer and kt shorb, as well as a review of faculty member Lisa B. Thompson's Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues by alum I.B. Hopkins (M.F.A. 2020).

Despite the landscape of educational theatre shifting before them in spring of 2020, recent UTeach Theatre graduates celebrated a 100% job placement rate for those applying at Texas schools. Alumni Miranda Perkins and Tori Husting discuss their first semester of teaching in this new educational landscape and their advice for future teachers stepping into these roles.

Playwright Hee-won Kim, director Mike Steele and co-environmental designers Ningmo Liu and Mingxiang Ya discuss the major components of OCD as well as the challenges (and benefits) of creating a world that is at once virtual, performed and animated.