Teaching Experience

I'm currently the Instructor for one class section of Theater 140: Fundamentals of Acting, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as part of my Graduate Assistantship in my MFA program. Each semester, I teach approximately 13-17 undergraduate students who approach the class with various levels of prior theater experience and interest.  

I create and execute my own curriculum and daily lesson plans, based on a more broad set of goals set by the UMass Theater Department.

Every semester of my Fundamentals of Acting class includes the following:

• The use of the textbook "A Practical Handbook for the Actor," to teach the principles of Given Circumstances, Objectives, Actions, and the use of Action Verbs, as applied to realistic scenes. 
• Assigning students scenes from plays for them to study, rehearse, and perform for the class three times during the semester for a grade and detailed feedback. 
• Assigning an "Autodrama" solo performance project at the beginning of the semester to help students begin go build confidence around personal storytelling on stage and start to think creatively about theatrical staging and presentation. 
• I lead a daily physical and vocal warm-up and describe the basic principles of why we do certain warm-ups to maintain the actor's "instrument"
• I facilitate several Viola Spolin-style improv games, many of which I learned from my training at Piven Theatre in Chicago, to teach students the basics of collaboration, listening, spontaneity, ensemble-building, and making creative choices. I then connect these games to techniques that students could apply to their scripted scenes. 
• I assign papers that ask students to analyze production choices in University mainstage productions. 
• I assign, and given detailed feedback on, a Scene Analysis paper, where students fully analyze the Given Circumstances, Objectives, beat shifts, and Actions in their assigned play and scene for their major Scene Study project. 

Through my experience teaching Fundamentals of Acting, i have developed a deeper interest in theatre pedagogy and would love to gain more teaching experience with students of all ages and levels.