Updates and highlights on faculty activities and achievements:
- Congratulations to Professor Rosana Tavarez, part-time instructor of dance. After a wonderfully successful run at Highways Performance Space, her full-length work "Hybrids of Plant & of Ghosts" will be presented at The Odyssey Theatre Feb 2 @8pm at Feb 3 @2pm. Joining the creative team is Ovation Award-winning Video Designer Matthew Hill. Discount tickets are available for $15. This work is part of the 3rd annual festival "Dance at The Odyssey" which features talented choreographers on different weekend programs: Shade Theret, Kevin Williamson + Company, Rebecca Lemme/Acts of Matter, LA Contemporary Dance Company, and The TL Collective/Micaela Taylor & The JA Collective. To read more about the work, here is a gorgeous review by Joanne DiVito for LA Dance Chronicle.
- Professor Collin Bressie, MFA/Acting Option Alum (2016) and part-time instructor in acting and stage combat, is performing the role of Jussac in The Three Musketeers at the Norris Theatre with the Palos Verdes Performing Arts Center.
- Professor Joshua Carlebach, who teaches Movement II: LaCoq, is the writer's assistant on the new NBC television show New Amsterdam.
- Professor Barry Gordon, who teaches Acting for the Camera, will be playing Huck's Father in Mark Twain and Friends: A River Journey at Parson's Nose Theater in Pasadena. For tickets, visit the Parson's Nose Theater website.
- Professor Matthew Floyd Miller, who teaches Movement III: Grotowski, will be appearing in the West Coast Premiere of Agatha Chrsitie's Murder on the Orient Express adapted by Ken Ludwig. Performances are October 19, 2018-November 11, 2018 at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts in La Miranda, California. For tickets, visit the La Mirada Theater website.
- Professor Tom Armbruster, who teaches Motion Capture, will speak on the panel "Leveraging Immersive Media in Education" at the MAVRIC Conference in Washington D.C. This panel will discuss practical methods and applications for implementing Immersive Media for education, including public education and museum exhibition, through to advanced university and industrial settings. Featured panelists in addition to Professor Armbruster include Nick Jushchyshyn, founding Program Director for VR & Immersive Media at Drexel University, Susan Poulton, who recently served as the Chief Digital Officer at The Franklin Institute Science Museum and is now President of Door 44 Digital, a digital strategy consulting firm, and Justin Berry, who currently serves as project lead for the Blended Reality collective, part of an applied research grant in mixed reality at Yale University's Center for Collaborative Arts and Media. For more information on the conference, please visit the website.
- Professor Sylke Rene Meyer in Fall 2018 directed the workshop production Strange Loops, an improvisational, multimedia performance piece, supported by Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities (RSCA) Grant with additional funding from the Puffin Foundation. Performed over two days, the piece included live music and 24 Undergraduate and Graduate students creating original material.
- Professor Stephen Rothman in Spring of 2018 directed the workshop production of the new musical Dear John, Why Yoko? Using students from Cal State LA's Department of Theater and Dance, the workshop offered the students the chance to directly work with the writer Anzu Lawson and help develop a new piece of theater. Broadwayworld.com reviewed the new musical.