Matt LeFebvre
Mathew J. LeFebvre has been designing costumes for theatrical productions since 1987. Born and raised in Minnesota, he attended UMN Morris where he fell in love with costume design and then received his MFA from UMN Twin Cities, where he now resides as faculty and chair of the Department of Theatre Arts & Dance. Today’s conversation includes light-up gaming headsets, zoom culture commentary, and visions of a post-pandemic antiracist theatre space.
Episode One
Sabrina Diehl and Wariboko Semenitari (ACC)
Created by UMTAD students Sabrina Diehl and Wariboko Semenitari, The Artists of Color Coalition (A.C.C.) is a group for students of color in UMTAD to have a safe space to discuss, explore, and celebrate the culture and diversity within the department. It aims to gather and build community across different majors and help UMTAD’s students of color thrive. Throughout the year, the A.C.C will be hosting numerous events and workshops with different BIPOC students in the department, artists in the Twin City area, alumni, and more! For more information, you can find them on Facebook or follow them on Instagram @acc_umtad.
Episode Two
Serena Brook
Serena Brook was born in Eagan, Minnesota. She was raised on Mel Brooks movies, The Simpsons, and classic musical theatre records. She dove into the professional world of acting after receiving her B.F.A. from the University of Minnesota in Duluth.Since 2006, Serena has been seen on stages Off-Broadway, regionally, and on the national tour circuit. She is also an accomplished voiceover artist and spent 3 years touring with the national radio variety program, Live from Here. She currently resides in Minneapolis with her musician husband, Nick, and their cat, Vicky. Serena can't resist a good pun and will always geek out over a really great key-change and a good cup of coffee.
Episode Three
Maggie Bergeron
Maggie Bergeron is an organizer, teacher, choreographer, dancer, lighting designer, and writer. She graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy and holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota, and is also a MN Licensed K-12 Dance Instructor and holds a Masters of Arts in Teaching. She is committed to exploring the process of collaboration in her work and teaching, and is most interested in edges and overlaps
Episode Four
Sarah Grace Goldman
Sarah Grace Goldman is a 4th year student in the BFA Program. She was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. Along with acting, she is interested in cooking Southern comfort food, playwriting, and really good smelling candles.
Episode Five
Victor Zupanc
Victor Zupanc, born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada began his musical career studying violin and piano at the age of six at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Victoria, British Columbia. After receiving his Bachelor of Music Degree at the University of Victoria he went on to earn his Masters Degree in Music Composition at the University of California at San Diego in 1983. Since then Victor has been one of the most prolific theater artists in America involved in nearly 300 theatrical productions as composer, musical director, sound designer and performer.
Episode Six
Katie Willer
Katie Willer is quite possibly the most knowledgeable person alive when it comes to the ins and outs of the UMTAD BA program. Since graduating from the program herself, she has become the resident Theatre Arts BA Academic Advisor and continues to impress with her ability to recall the course number and schedule for any class in the program right off the top of her head. You can find her as her charismatic self at will0962@umn.edu or as a hilariously cynical stage manager on Matt Anderson’s web series titled Theatre People, viewable on free streaming service Seeka. Make an appointment with Katie through the link in her email’s signature line, also available here.
Episode Seven
Talvin Willks
Talvin Wilks is a playwright, director, and dramaturg. His plays include Tod, the boy, Tod; The Trial of Uncle S&M; Bread of Heaven; An American Triptych; Jimmy and Lorraine: A Musing; and As I Remember It with Carmen de Lavallade. Directorial projects include the world or regional premiere productions of UDU by Sekou Sundiata, The Love Space Demands by Ntozake Shange, The White Card by Claudia Rankine, The Peculiar Patriot by Liza Jessie Peterson, and The Ballad of Emmett Till and Benevolence by Ifa Bayeza. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Theatre Arts and Dance Department, University of Minnesota/Twin Cities and writing a book titled Testament: 40 Years of Black Theatre History in the Making, 1964-2004
Episode Eight
Madeline Wall and Renèe Schwarz
Madeline Wall is a 2020 graduate of the University of Minnesota. She started The Birth Play Project because she believes that womb-holders' stories belong on our stages and in our collective consciousness. She is the playwright, producer, and director of I With Things NewBorn in addition to playing Francisca.
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Renèe Schwarz is currently a senior at the University of Minnesota studying Theatre Arts and Theatre Education with the DirecTrack to Teaching program. She plays Juliet in I With Things NewBorn and is here to wow us with her grace and wonder.
Episode Nine
HIJACK
HIJACK is the choreographic collaboration of Kristin Van Loon & Arwen Wilder. Van Loon & Wilder each grew up in Chicago, met at Colorado College, and established their collaboration in Minneapolis in 1993. HIJACK's roots in a liberal arts setting isolated in the mountains laid the foundation for experimentation, invention without precedent, and making dance out of everything but dance.Over the last 25 years they have created over 100 dances and performed in venues ranging from proscenium to barely-legal. In Minneapolis, HIJACK enjoys long relationships with Bedlam Theatre (as regulars at Romps), Red Eye Collaborations (as part of their Critical Core), Zenon Dance School (Wednesday morning Contact Improv class since 2000), and at Bryant Lake Bowl. They teach a number of classes here at the U, including (in non-covid times) contact improvisation, and just filmed their UDT piece earlier this month.
Episode Ten
Emma Lai
Emma is an aspiring director and producer based here in Minneapolis and is set to graduate from our BA Theatre Arts Performance Creation program this spring. She is the founder and director of Firefly Musical Productions, a student based musical theatre company here on campus, and spent last spring in New York City as an intern for Telsey+Company casting.
Episode Eleven
Sonali Pahwa
Sonali is an ethnographer of stage, street, and digital performance, with a particular interest in youth culture in the Arab world. Her recently published book Theaters of Citizenship: Aesthetics and Politics of Egypt’s Avant-Gardes examines the cultural politics of identity in Egyptian underground theater, before and after 2011. Since 2011, She has launched a second project on young Arab women’s digital performances. Beginning with an article on Egyptian bloggers who used intimate digital spaces to talk about self and sexuality, as well as revolutionary politics, she studied the performances of a Saudi beauty vlogger and Egyptian hijab evangelist on Instagram. She is interested in how their roles evolve across platforms and study them as posthuman performances, built by algorithmic, technological, and bodily processes. She received her PhD from Columbia University in anthropology and teaches in the history/literature program here at the U.
Episode Twelve
Bruce Roach
Bruce Roach is an actor, director and educator whose work has taken him across the U.S. and abroad. He is an MFA graduate of the FSU/Asolo Conservatory. Favorite roles he has performed include Iago, Leontes and Richard III. His diverse directing credits range from Shakespeare and Gilbert and Sullivan to Tracy Letts and Suzan Lori-Parks. In 2016 he directed Mike Bartlett’s Earthquakes in London for the BFA program in the Dowling Studio at the Guthrie Theater. He has been teaching and directing in the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program since 2010. Other highlights of his directing projects for the BFA include A Lie of the Mind, In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, The Seagull, and Three Sisters.
Episode Thirteen
Ani Mosity
Ani is a second-year MFA student focusing on costume design, having graduated from Arizona State University in Phoenix in 2014 with a degree in theatre. They costume designed the BA's 2020 Mainstage production "The Skriker" and will be designing "Men on Boats" for the program this coming spring. Conversation highlights include the challenges and consequences of colorblind casting, magical relationships between actors and costume designers, and the joys (and horrors) of high school theatre.
Episode Fourteen
Aaron Todd Douglas
Aaron Todd Douglas is an acting, directing, writing, and teaching theatre-artist-phenomenon as the Director of the University of Minnesota BFA Actor Training Program. A Chicago stage veteran before moving to the Twin Cities, Aaron Todd has acted and directed at many of Chicago’s finest theatre companies including The Goodman, Victory Gardens, Eclipse Theatre, ETA Creative Arts, Chicago Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare, Raven Theatre, The Court and Steppenwolf. He is also a founding ensemble member, former Associate Artistic Director, and former Playwright in Residence of Congo Square Theatre Company.
Episode Fifteen
Sonja Kuftinec
What are the limits of performance as a mode of conflict transformation and social change? Over 25 years Professor Kuftinec has been exploring this question through research, teaching and practice. Professor Kuftinec teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Twin Cities theater, performance and social change, early modern theater and performance, critical literacy, storytelling, leadership, and drama. Her research includes community-based theater, conflict transformation, arts-based pedagogy, and the work of story to counter individual and historical amnesia. She has published widely in these areas including her award-winning Staging America: Cornerstone and Community-Based Theater (SIU Press, 2003) and Theatre, Facilitation and Nation Formation in the Balkans and Middle East (Palgrave, 2009).
Episode Sixteen