Recent News

For a recent acting project entitled "Classical Vlogues," faculty member Jeremy Lee Cudd worked with five undergraduate students to re-imagine Shakespearean monologues as intimate, site-specific solos. Their performances are available online, workshopped and completed through multiple Zoom rehearsals leading up to safe, socially distanced filming sessions.

M.F.A. in Live Design candidate Michael Bruner and current UT Austin student Samara Zuckerbrod discuss building a space for connection and reflection on climate change and our environmental impacts through the Creek Monster Habitat, an art installation created by multiple UT community members in and beyond the Department of Theatre and Dance.

Dance students Ivana Castañeda, Howard Rochelle and Tiffany Merritt-Brown share how they developed movement pieces that comment on issues of social justice for the 2021 Cohen New Works Festival, furthering their hopes that art can serve as an incubator for healing, reflection and positive change.

In a recent Sightlines interview, alum Rudy Ramirez (M.A. 2012) discusses the challenges of the past year, touching on how the nationwide pivot to virtual programming provided them with opportunities to work with artists outside of Austin and across the country.

The tradition of showcasing cutting-edge new works by UT students continues in the 2021 Cohen New Works Festival, running April 12-16. Featuring performance art by Theatre and Dance students, as well as other artists across the College of Fine Arts, this year's virtual festival includes 33 experimental works.

Fourth-year B.A. in Theatre and Dance and Advertising double major Gabriella Bastek was recently featured as the College of Fine Arts' student spotlight for the month of April, highlighting her interest in entrepreneurship that was sparked after taking a course through the Kendra Scott Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute.

Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, associate professor in the Performance as Public Practice area, was recently selected as one of only seven faculty members campus-wide to receive a President's Associates Teaching Excellence Award, recognizing him for exceptional undergraduate teaching.

Nicholas Kaidoo (Fall the House) and Jenny Krick (sad women being sad) shared their process of adapting centuries-old scripts into brand new plays, presented as part of UTNT (UT New Theatre).