Recent News

As one of their Presidential Visiting Scholars, faculty member Dr. Lisa B. Thompson sat down with The New School President Dr. Dwight A. McBride to talk about her work as a playwright and scholar and the experiences that led her to where she is now.

Playwright and alum Isaac Gómez (B.A. 2013) is included in the Los Angeles Times' "LA Vanguardia" - a list of innovative Latino artists. Gómez's feature touches on the research that led them to write La Ruta, which started during their time at The University of Texas at Austin.

In communicating the importance of their research on climate change with the public, Planet Texas 2050 recruited the help of artists, including faculty member Dorothy O'Shea Overbey and alumni Tiffany Merritt-Brown (M.F.A. 2022) and Angelica Monteiro (faculty, M.F.A. 2022).

Glass Half Full Theater's dark and magical production of Yamel Cucuy featured striking design elements by alumni Annie Ulrich (M.F.A. 2021) and Rachel Atkinson (M.F.A. 2013).

Graduate student Zachariah Ezer is among seven playwrights commissioned for Theater J's Expanding the Canon Initiative, a new play development program created to expand the racial and ethnic representations of Jewishness in theatre.

Every year, the B. Iden Payne Council is tasked with viewing and nominating outstanding production elements in Austin. The Department of Theatre and Dance, as well as its students, faculty, alumni and staff, were nominated for many awards in a broad range of categories for the 2021/2022 season.

Playwright Justine Gelfman and director Jenny Lavery talk about the companies, experiences and realizations that inspired In Sisters We Trust, or My F*cked Up American Girl Doll Play and the theatrical spectacle of its first on stage production.

Current Ph.D. candidate Michael DeWhatley and M.F.A. candidate Deen Rawlins-Harris were selected from applicants across the state as the two recipients of Texas Educational Theatre Association's 2022 Founders' Scholarships for Upper Division/Graduate Theatre Students.