Recent News

The Off-Broadway premiere of Toros by Danny Tejera (M.F.A. 2020) was featured as a critic's pick in The New York Times. Tejera's play, which just concluded its run with Second Stage Theater, was praised as a "finely detailed character study of languishing jet-set twentysomethings."

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 Roxanne Schroeder-Arce's article, To Represent or Not to Represent: Choice or Excuse, has been published in Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Education.

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."