Faculty & Staff Bios
Faculty & Staff A-Z
Areas of Specialty
Acting, Directing, American Dramatic Literature
Mohammed Alani
Mohammed Ali Alani (or just mo) is a playwright and educator who seeks to reconcile the irreconcilable through an obsessive (almost desperate) act of portraiture, relying on intricate collaging and devotional pastiching as his primary means of creation. He's interested in documenting the stories of those who are marked by a paradoxical intersection of disparate identities and seek to reshape the world in their image, honestly portraying their successes (and more often, their failures.) Mo holds a BA in Global Liberal Studies from NYU and now pursues his Playwriting MFA at Hunter College. He's worked for arts and activism organizations and nonprofits like PEN America, NQT, and Emgage USA.
Adjunct Lecturer
Adjunct Lecturer
Areas of Specialty
Acting, Directing, American Dramatic Literature
Davis Alianiello
Davis Alianiello is a playwright, director, dramaturg, and teacher. His play Snake was a second place recipient of the Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting from the Kennedy Center. His plays for schools are published by Playscripts and have been performed in twenty-three states, as well as Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, Japan, Jordan, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He has developed new work with the Boston Center for the Arts, the Wilbury Group, Theatre of the Electric Mouth, and Stone Oven House in Rorá, Italy. BA, Muhlenberg College (Theatre Directing / English). MFA, Hunter College (Playwriting).
Areas of Specialty
Acting, Directing, American Dramatic Literature
Barbara Bosch
Professor
Professor Bosch's acting and directing credits include work Off and Off-Off Broadway at the Pearl Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, HERE, Classic Stage, and Circle Rep, among others. Regionally she has worked at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Old Globe, the Magic Theater, Marin Theater Company, Sacramento Theater Company, Vermont Theatre Company, Western Stage, Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts, and at Shakespeare Festivals in California, Texas, Maine, Wisconsin, Alaska, and Utah. Her international directing and teaching has taken place in Poland, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Australia, and the Czech Republic. She is a member of SDC, and AEA-SAG and has also been a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Theater. Her Ph.D. is from U.C. Berkeley and her M.F.A. is from Southern Methodist University.
Areas of Specialty
Acting, Directing, American Dramatic Literature
Burke Brown
Adjunct Lecturer, Production Manager
The Theatre Department’s Production Manager, Burke Brown, previously supported Marymount Manhattan College’s Dance Department and Hunter College’s Dance Department.
As a lighting designer, his work in theater and opera includes projects with Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mabou Mines, Ars Nova, NYSF-Public Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, Cleveland Playhouse, Magic Theatre, Two River Theater Company, Playmakers Repertory Company and Kansas City Rep. Outside of the US, his work includes productions at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the Golden Mask Festival in Moscow, the Seoul Performing Arts Festival in South Korea, and Erratica in London. As a scenic and lighting designer for dance, he has worked with La Scala Ballet, English National Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Bayerisches Staatsballett, Ballett am Rhein, Martha Graham Dance Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Houston Ballet, Compañia Nacional de Danza (Mexico), and Aszure Barton & Artists.
Mr. Brown has a Bachelor’s of Arts in International Studies and Theater Studies from Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. He received his Master’s of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama He is a member of United Scenic Artists and Wingspace Theatrical Design. Originally from North Carolina, Burke Brown has lived in Beijing, Miami, New Haven and Brooklyn. He now lives in Jackson Heights, Queens with his wife and son.
Areas of Specialty
Theatre Architecture, Design and Lighting
Ian Calderon
Professor
As a Hunter alumnus he has over 100 national and international theatre and television productions to his credit. On Broadway he designed That Championship Season, Timbuktu, Paul Robeson, The Art of Dining, Trelawney of the Wells, Man in the Moon Marigold, Sticks and Bones, The Dance of Death, among others, and has been nominated for two Tony Awards, the Drama Desk Award, and the Maharam Award. His work has been seen on London's West End and he is a member of the Society of British Theatre Designers. As a guest of The People's Republic of China he designed Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie in Beijing. For over a decade, at the O'Neill Center he produced the New Drama for Television developing works that later aired on ABC network. He also produced television interviews; Katherine Hepburn with Dick Cavett, Ethel Merman with Gene Shallit, and Helen Hayes with Leonard Harris.
Areas of Specialty
Theatre Architecture, Design and Lighting
Elijah Caldwell
Adjunct Lecturer
An OBIE Award Winner. Elijah was the Standby in A Strange Loop at Playwrights Horizon. Elijah began his journey to being the artist he is at 5 years old when he began training piano classically. He continued his journey attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill receiving his Bachelors of Music with a Focus in Piano Performance, with the addition of voice. Post graduation, Elijah moved directly to New York City to attend the prestigious New York University Steinhardt School where he received his Masters degree and began pursuing his acting career. Elijah has had the pleasure of making a name for himself in New York City. He made his Off-Broadway debut at Town Hall as one of Broadway’s Rising Stars. Elijah has been seen Off-Broadway numerous times, the Cutting Room, 54 Below, and Birdland Jazz Club, just to name a few. Elijah is an educator and was the Assistant Music Director on the Broadway Bound - Devil Wears Prada. Elijah just finished portraying Lola in Kinky Boots. IG: @ThisIsCaldwellofficial
www.thisiscaldwell.com #ThisIsCaldwell
Areas of Specialty
Theatre History, Intercultural Performance, Chinese Theatre (Kunqu)
Dongshin Chang
Chair of Theater Department
Associate Professor
Dongshin Chang is a theatre scholar and practitioner. His writings have so far examined intercultural performance, traditional Chinese theatre, and writing pedagogy, which include a manuscript, Representing China on the Historical London Stage: From Orientalism to Intercultural Performance (2015), and articles published in New Directions in Teaching Theatre Arts (2018), Asian Theatre Journal (2017), Cambridge Encyclopedia of Stage Actors and Acting (2015), Antigone on the Contemporary World Stage (2011), CHINOPERL Papers (2011), Asian Canadian Theatre (2011), and others. As a practitioner, Chang has been studying and performing kunqu (an elegant form of traditional Chinese theatre) and nihon buyo (classical Japanese dance). He was President of the Kunqu Society in New York, 2019-2024.
Areas of Specialty
Acting & Auditioning
Tim Cusack
Adjunct Lecturer
Tim Cusack was the co-founder and artistic director of Theatre Askew. For Askew he conceived, co-adapted, co-directed and appeared as Caligula in the company’s six-part serial adaptation of I, Claudius, and directed the New York premiere of William M. Hoffman’s Cornbury: The Queen’s Governor starring David Greenspan and Everett Quinton. He appeared onstage for Askew in Bald Diva! (Notable Performance of the Year—TheaterMania & NYTheater.com), The Tempest, i google myself, and Horseplay, or the Fickle Mistress: A Protean Picaresque in the Ellen Stewart Theatre at La MaMa. For the Theatre Askew Youth Performance Experience (TAYPE) program, he helped devise and directed many of the original plays created by its LGBTQ+ and allied youth ensembles. He is a founding member of the Pride Youth Theater Alliance (PYTA). In addition to his work with Askew, he was for many years a company member with Alexandra Beller/Dances, performing in what comes after happy at Abrons Art Center and on tour in Poland and St. Petersburg, Russia. He directed “The Bed” and “Camera Obscura” sections of the OBIE-winning OFFSTAGE: East and West Village Fragments for Peculiar Works Project. He is a Next magazine “Future Legend,” a 2007 NYTheatre.com Person of the Year, was named by Next as one of the most significant figures among the new generation of out gay theatre artists, and is an inductee to the Indy Theater Hall of Fame. His site-specific solo performance piece "I Ping the Body Electric" recently premiered as part of the Art in Odd Places festival. He is currently at work on a new volume of scholarly essays Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects, co-edited with Claudia Orenstein. BFA NYU/TSOA. MA Hunter/CUNY.
Areas of Specialty
Costume History, Costume and Fashion Design, Technology, Costume Crafts, South Asian Clothing and Costume
Deepsikha Chatterjee
Lecturer
Deepsikha is a costume designer and costume historian. At Hunter College she enjoys teaching a diverse student body helping them visualize play scripts and ideas into living, breathing characters. She teaches students how to sew, make patterns, make masks, run wardrobe, and create their own work. She helps students gain an understanding of performance traditions from Asia, especially India, their visual aspects in textiles, crafts, masks, and makeup. At Hunter College, she teaches courses in Introduction to Theatre, Costume Design, Costume Crafts, Costume Technology and Stage Makeup. Here she received an Outstanding Undergraduate Student Research Mentor Award in 2015. Deepsikha was awarded the Best Costume Design Award in 2014 and 2017 by United Solo for her design of Butoh Medea and Hide Your Fire.
Currently, she is pursuing her Ph.D. at CUNY Graduate Center with an emphasis on the material culture of performance. She has received notable grants for ethnographic research. Her scholarship has been published in Asian Theatre Journal, Dress (Taylor and Francis), Journal of Costume and Performance (Intellect), Fashion Practice (Taylor and Francis), and others. She serves as the dance director for Indo American Arts Council.
Areas of Specialty
Theatre History, Intercultural Performance, Chinese Theatre (Kunqu)
James Cleveland
Adjunct Lecturer
James Cleveland is an actor, teacher, and musician. As an actor he has performed over a hundred roles Off and Off-Off-Broadway, regionally and in stock, as well as tours with The National Shakespeare Company and TheaterWorksUSA, and a two-year stint with The Left Fielders, a comedy improv troupe in Los Angeles. His handbook on improvisation, Making It Up as You Go, will be coming out next year. He also teaches traditional fiddle for Irish Arts Center NYC. He holds an MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, where he studied with William Esper and Maggie Flanigan, and a BA from California State University, Northridge.
Areas of Specialty
Theatre History, Intercultural Performance, Chinese Theatre (Kunqu)
Robert Davis
Adjunct Lecturer
Email: rdavis@hunter.cuny.edu
Robert Davis has a Master’s in Greek Theatre from Royal Holloway, University of London and a Ph.D. in Theatre from the CUNY Graduate Center with a focus on the nineteenth century. He has published scholarly articles on world’s fairs, Greek drama, and women’s history for Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and other journals. He has written two interactive novels for Choice of Games, Broadway: 1849 (2017) and Chronicon Apocalyptica (2019). He has also written for Slate’s Vault blog, Lady Science, and History Today’s “Miscellanies.”
Areas of Specialty
Acting practice and theory, directing practice and theory, theatre history, mime, masks
Mira Felner
Professor
Mira Felner has acted and directed in the United States and France and headed a French language theatre in New York for several years. She is a specialist in mime and studied in Paris with Jacques Lecoq. She taught the first movement course affiliated with the Sorbonne’s Institut d”Etudes Theatrales. Professor Felner has written extensively on movement in actor training. Her book Apostles of Silence: The Modern French Mimes was the first scholarly study of the modern mime form. Free to Act: An Integrated Approach to Acting explores the physical base for acting technique. Her interest in theatre traditions around the world led her to write The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation with Claudia Orenstein. Her latest book,Think Theatre, is the first American theatre textbook to be translated into Korean.
Areas of Specialty
Acting & Auditioning
Melissa Flower-Gladney
Adjunct Lecturer
Melissa Flower-Gladney is a theatre director, performance artist, and dramaturg specializing in physical theatre practices. She has trained with SITI Company and SCOT (Japan). She is a PhD Student in Theatre and Performance at CUNY with a focus on physical theatre training as social practice, the materiality of grief, and theories of affect and precarity in relation to motherhood and nationalism. She is published in M(o)ther Perspectives: Staging Motherhood in the 21st Century Edited by Aoise Stratford and Lynn Deboeck through Routledge Publishers. Melissa’s artistic works include Pangea at BLUEorange Gallery, Memory in the Time of the Refugee at Dixon Place, things missing/missed at Undermain Theatre, and Transitions published in the Emergency INDEX by Ugly Duckling Press. She has acted as assistant literary manager at the Alley Theatre. Melissa holds an MA from the University of Houston.
Areas of Specialty
Acting & Auditioning
Stephen Foglia
Adjunct Lecturer
Email:fs1035@hunter.cuny.edu
Stephen Foglia is a writer and director from St. Louis. He earned his MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University in 2017, studying under David Henry Hwang and Lynn Nottage. His plays have been performed in New York City, Dallas, and Shanghai. From 2011-2014 he served as Literary Manager for Undermain Theater. Stephen is a member of Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Since 2017, he has worked at Hunter College mentoring young writers and teaching courses in Play Analysis and the Humanities.
Areas of Specialty
Acting & Auditioning
Taylor Friel
Adjunct Lecturer
Email: friel.tay@gmail.com
Taylor Friel is a Brooklyn based and Las Vegas raised artist and designer for theatre, dance, opera, music videos, and more. They received an MFA in Scenic Design from New York University in the Department of Design for Stage and Film. Taylor’s design work has been seen at venues across New York City including BAM Harvey, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, the Daryl Roth Theatre, The Vineyard, HERE Arts Center, The Chocolate Factory, and Out of the Box Theatrics (formerly The New Ohio). Taylor pursues work that pushes the boundaries of the western theatre canon and challenges the hegemonic structures that exist within our industry. Alongside their theatre work, Taylor is a collage artist, graphic designer, and historian of horror films.
Areas of Specialty
Theater History, Dramatic Literature, Theater Criticism and Theory, Dramaturgy
Jonathan Kalb
Professor
Jonathan Kalb is the author of five books on theater and has worked for more than three decades as a theater scholar, critic, journalist, and dramaturg. He is the Resident Dramaturg at Theatre for a New Audience and the curator and host of the theater-review-panel series TheaterMatters at HERE Arts Center. Kalb has twice won the country’s most prestigious prize for a drama critic, The George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, and has also won the George Freedley Award for an outstanding theater book from the Theatre Library Association. He was the founding editor of HotReview.org (The Hunter On-Line Theater Review), which published hundreds of reviews, essays and interviews by new and well-known theater writers from 2003-2016. He currently writes about theater on his TheaterMatters blog (at www.jonathankalb.com). His books include Beckett in Performance, The Theater of Heiner Müller and Great Lengths: Seven Works of Marathon Theater. He has been a theater critic for The Village Voice, New York Press, and The New York Times, and his writing has appeared in many other publications including The New Yorker, The Nation, Salon.com, Salmagundi, The Threepenny Review, Modern Drama and Theater Heute.
Areas of Specialty
Theater History, Dramatic Literature, Theater Criticism and Theory, Dramaturgy
Deniz Khateri
Adjunct Lecturer
Deniz is an Iranian-American multidisciplinary artist based in New York. Her works experiment with form and they focus on memory, grief, immigration and the concept of home. Her plays have been performed in several national and international festivals. She has written and directed experimental music-theatre projects that challenge the status quo and current vernacular of the theatre and modern opera scene. Her works have been praised as “excellent” (The Boston Globe) , “remarkable on every level”(Ewing Reviewing) and “Fascinating” (Broadway World LA). A former resident artist at Center at West Park and a resident playwright at the New Perspectives theatre women’s play lab, she has also designed and directed international shows, video arts and shadow puppetry visuals for companies such as OperFrankfurt, Guerilla Opera, Dinosaur Annex, and Long Beach Opera.Holding an MA in Theatre from City University of New York,she has trained in master classes and workshops with prominent international artists including Peter Brook,Richard Schechner, Paul Zaloom and Gardzienice theatre company of Poland. She is an adjunct lecturer at Hunter college and Queens borough community college of CUNY. Deniz has performed extensively in her hometown Tehran as well as on stages of prominent theatre companies of Boston and New York.
Deniz is one of the three recipients of 2024 Al-Bustan award for her solo performance at the Philly Fringe Festival. Awarded by UNIMA-USA for “excellence in writing for the art of puppetry” she has been the recipient of NYSCA award for her new project “Husks from Iran”, as well as the NYFA fund for her Oscar-qualified documentary animated web series, “Diasporan”, for which she is the writer, director, animator and singer and explores the daily struggles of immigrants. (www.denizkhateri.com)
Areas of Specialty
Basic & Advanced Voice & Movement
Michael McIntire
Adjunct Lecturer
Michael McIntire is an actor with an MFA in acting from American Conservatory Theater. He has performed in many theaters throughout the country - including ACT and Berkeley Rep Theater - and has also done extensive TV/film work. Along with his MFA, Michael also holds a BA from both Columbia College Chicago and Truman State University.
Areas of Specialty
Basic & Advanced Voice & Movement
Benjamin Moore
Adjunct Associate Professor
Benjamin is a New York City-based theatre artist, Designated Linklater Teacher, and voice, speech, and acting coach. The former Dean of the School of Visual & Performing Arts at LIUPost, he serves on the faculty of the Linklater Center for Voice and Language, and has taught or lectured at Columbia Grad School, the New School, Duke, Hofstra, Fordham, Terry Knickerbocker Studios, among others, as well as classes, workshops, and private students in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. As director of EdArts—a training center for public-sector professionals—Benjamin works with students from the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, Columbia Business School, Weill-Cornel University Medical Hospital, among others. He coaches film, television, and theatre including productions of KING LEAR, URINETOWN, OEDIPUS REX, and Hunter’s THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT. As an actor he has played the title roles in JULIAS CAESAR, HAMLET, MACBETH, and VANYA, as well as John Adams in 1776, Falstaff in HENRY IV, 1, with such directors as Alexandre Marin, Yuri Yeroman, Mladen Kiselov, Roger Henderson. Directing credits include A DREAM PLAY, THE TEMPEST, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, and dozens of new works for the stage. His voice can be heard in national commercials, video games, and recordings of poetry for fine press publishers of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam and Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Benjamin is a member of Actors Equity, SAG/AFTRA, Voice and Speech Trainers Association. He holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Diploma from the Moscow Art Theatre School.
Areas of Specialty
Directing, Play Analysis, Production, Wed@One, Hunter Theater Project
Gregory Mosher
Patty and Jay Baker Professor of Theatre
Gregory is the director and/or producer of over 200 plays and musicals, many of them world or American premieres at the Lincoln Center and Goodman theaters (both of which he led), on Broadway, at the Royal National Theatre, and in London’s West End. His theater and film colleagues have included such leading actors as Alan Alda, Alec Baldwin, Candice Bergen, Brian Cox, Mia Farrow, Sally Field, Dustin Hoffman, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Lange, John Leguizamo, Steve Martin, Liev Schreiber, Kiefer Sutherland, Robin Williams, and many more. Colleagues on new plays and productions include writers Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett, Spalding Gray, David Mamet, Emily Mann, Elaine May, Arthur Miller, Richard Nelson, Mbongeni Ngema, Wole Soyinka, John Weidman, Tennessee Williams, and Derek Walcott; composers Leonard Bernstein, Rosanne Cash, and John Leventhal; and directors Peter Brook, Mike Nichols, and Jerome Robbins.
He produced the film version of David Mamet’s American Buffalo (starring Dustin Hoffman) and directed the film The Prime Gig (starring Vince Vaughn, Ed Harris, and Julia Ormond), which was invited to the Venice, London, and Los Angeles film festivals.
His adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone was published in 2017, following a tour of the play to schools, community centers, and prisons in Kenya, and in the townships of Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa.
In 2005, he was hired by Columbia University president Lee C. Bollinger to establish the Columbia Arts Initiative, a program to engage all students, faculty, and alumni in the arts, which has been widely adapted for American colleges and universities. From 2010-2017, he served as Professor of Professional Practice in the Columbia School of the Arts, where he taught actors, playwrights, directors, and producers.
He currently serves as Hunter’s Senior Associate Dean for the Arts.
Areas of Specialty
Puppetry/Object performance, Asian Theatre, Interculturalism, Political Theatre
Esther Neff
Adjunct Lecturer
Office: Baker Theatre Building 5th Floor
Esther Neff (she/they) is the founder and director/playwright of PPL, a collective making operas-of-operations, new plays, and performance art. PPL has produced their work in NYC, across the USA, and around the world. Neff's playscript/practical philosophyEmbarrassed of the (W)Hole is published by Ugly Duckling Presse (2023) and other writing can be found in Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan handbooks as well as in PAJ, Performance Paradigm, CAESURA, and many other journals and magazines. Neff holds a BFA in directing from the University of Michigan and is a PhD student in Theatre and Performance at CUNY Graduate Center.
Areas of Specialty
Puppetry/Object performance, Asian Theatre, Interculturalism, Political Theatre
Claudia Orenstein
Professor,Graduate Advisor
Claudia Orenstein is a scholar, dramaturg, director and actor, who has worked and studied in the US, France, India, and Japan. Her current research focuses on the use of mixed media in contemporary performing object theatre and puppetry forms in India and Japan. She has also written on political theatre and on interculturalism. Her articles and reviews appear in Asian Theatre Journal, Theatre, TDR, Theatre Symposium, Animated Encounters, Puppetry International, Puck, and Mime Journal. She worked as dramaturg for Shank’s Mare (LaMaMa) and Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Edinburgh International Festival). She has trained in various physical performance traditions including kathakali, kabuki, kyogen, bharata natyam, Balinese dance, commedia, and puppetry. . She serves as Associate Editor of Asian Theatre Journal and has been a Board Member of both the Association for Asian Performance and UNIMA- USA. S She runs a month-long Winter Education Abroad program for Hunter College in India, and she also holds an appointment at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Areas of Specialty
Puppetry/Object performance, Asian Theatre, Interculturalism, Political Theatre
Hui Peng
Adjunct Lecturer
Office: Baker Theatre Building 5th Floor
Email: hpeng@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Hui Peng is a performance studies scholar and curator whose research explores audience studies, dramaturgy, and disability studies. Her writings have been published in Theater Journal, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, and The Journal of American Drama and Theater. As a curator, Hui worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai, China, where she curated interdisciplinary works bridging the gap between the black box and white cube, including the notable interactive piece Nietzsche Goes Banana (2018). Currently, she is pursuing her Ph.D. at the CUNY Graduate Center, with a focus on advocating for disability justice in the U.S. and Asian theater. Hui received her M.A. in Teoria da Literatura from Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal. From 2020 to 2023, she served as the co-chair of the Performance Working Group at the Cultural Studies Association.
Areas of Specialty
Puppetry/Object performance, Asian Theatre, Interculturalism, Political Theatre
Alexandra Rego
Adjunct Lecturer
Office: Baker Theatre Building 5th Floor
Email: arego@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Alexandra A. Rego is a PhD candidate in Theatre and Performance at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She received a Scottish MA in English at the University of St Andrews, and a dual MA in Theatre and Performance Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Chicago. Alexandra’s dissertation research focuses on connections between performance and social injustice in the United States, and looks at applications of the language, logic, and bodily dynamics of performance and dance in contexts such as deportation, pathways to citizenship, and environmental emergency.
Areas of Specialty
MFA in Playwriting Program, Dramaturgy, & Production
Christine Scarfuto
Lecturer,
Director of Rita & Burton Goldberg MFA in Playwriting
Christine Scarfuto is dramaturg and producer with over a decade of experience in new play development. Most recently, she served as the Literary Manager of Long Wharf Theatre, where she oversaw a robust new play development program. Plays developed under her tenure include: Meteor Shower by Steve Martin, Lewiston by Sam Hunter, Dance Nation by Clare Barron, Passage by Christopher Chen, and Napoli, Brooklyn by Meghan Kennedy. She was also the Curator and Producer of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s developmental theater lab HVSF2, designed to examine new adaptations and translations of classic work. She has served as the Literary Associate at Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Literary Fellow at Signature Theatre, and has worked as a dramaturg with the Playwrights Center, the Lark Play Development Center, Primary Stages, Kennedy Center, Clubbed Thumb, Goodman Theatre, and the Playwrights Realm. She has taught at Fordham University, Rutgers University, and the University of Iowa, where she received her MFA in Dramaturgy.
Areas of Specialty
Puppetry/Object performance, Asian Theatre, Interculturalism, Political Theatre
Philip Christian Smith
Adjunct Lecturer
Office: Baker Theatre Building 5th Floor
Email: phillip@aya.yale.edu
Phillip Christian Smith is a member of New Drama*sts (class of 2030), a Fire This Time Festival Playwright, Tennessee Williams Scholar at Sewanee (current staff), Playwrights Realm and Lambda Literary Fellow, Winter Playwrights Retreater, Co-Literary Director of Exquisite Corpse Company. O’Neill, PlayPenn, Drama*sts Guild, and BAPF Finalist. His work has been supported by Bennington College, Alliance for The Arts, ATF, Primary Stages ESPA, Forge, and the 53rd Street New York Public Library. BFA University of New Mexico, MFA Yale School of Drama. MFA Hunter College ’23. He is currently working on a Roe Green Commission with The Cleveland Playhouse.
Areas of Specialty
Set and Costume Design
Louisa Thompson
Professor, Undergraduate Advisor
Louisa Thompson is a designer and a creator of theatrical work for young audiences. She received the 2019 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Scenic Design. In addition to the 16+ years she has taught at Hunter College she has designed for a variety of New York City theatres: Second Stage Theatre; Signature Theatre; Playwrights Horizons; Soho Repertory Theatre; The Play Company; Target Margin Theater; Clubbed Thumb; Rattlestick Playwrights Theater; Elevator Repair Service; The Foundry Theater Company. Her regional credits include: The Alliance Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Kirk Douglas Theater, Arden Theatre; Bard Summerscape, The McCarter Theatre, The Papermill Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse; The Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis. As Lead Artist she created "Washeteria" a site-specific all-age event that featured the work of Cesar Alvarez and Charise Castro-Smith. She has degrees from Yale School of Drama (MFA) and Rhode Island School of Design (BFA).
Areas of Specialty
Acting & Directing
Adrienne Williams
Adjunct Lecturer
Adrienne D Williams, Adjunct Associate Professor, has been on faculty of Hunter College since 2001. She is a recipient of the Cecile Insdorf Excellence in Teaching award by a part- time professor. She has been a Guest Director and lecturer at NYU Tisch Graduate Acting, Juilliard School of Drama, The David Geffen school of Drama at Yale, Syracuse University, Stella Adler Conservatory, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Her most recent Off Broadway directing credits include the world premiere of FISH by Kia Corthron, which was co-produced by Keen Company and Working Theatre, and THE GOSPEL WOMAN by TyLie Shider for the National Black Theatre. Her other directing credits include ANGELA’S MIXTAPE, WHAT NOW?, CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY, TROUBLE IN MIND, PARIS, NORA, A LIMBO LARGE AND BROAD, the opera THE TALES OF HOFFMAN and the film less Than or Equal To, which addresses housing discrimination.
As an actress, she has originated the roles of Countess Gewshwitz in Eric Bentley’s translation of THE FIRST LULU, Aglaya in Dave Fischelson’s adaptation of THE IDIOT, and Angeline in Barbara Lebow’s THE KEEPERS on the Off Broadway stage.
Her TV/Film credits includes Godfather of Harlem, FBI: Most Wanted, Blindspot, Bull, Blue Bloods,LawandOrder,Sopranos,andArchitects. RegionalcreditsincludeRosein FENCES, Clytemnestra in IPHIGENIA AT AULIS, Alma in YELLOWMAN (Best Actress nominee IRNE awards Boston), Andrea in the operetta AL FRESCO with Craig Lucas, and Daisy in EATONVILLE with music by Wynton Marsalis.
Areas of Specialty
Theatre Architecture, Design and Lighting
Eboni Booth
Adjunct Lecturer
Email: missebonibooth@gmail.com
Eboni Booth is a writer and actor from New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre, Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Outer Critics Circle Award) and Paris (Atlantic Theater). For television, she has written for Hulu’s We Were the Lucky Ones and HBO Max’s Julia. As an actor, Eboni has appeared in productions at Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Manhattan Theater Club, Ars Nova, WP Theater, Page 73, Soho Rep., Clubbed Thumb, and more. Eboni is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, and the recipient of a Dramatists Guild Horton Foote Award, a Steinberg Playwright Award, a Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, and a John Gassner Award. She is a graduate of Juilliard’s playwriting program and the University of Vermont.