Actor’s Presence and Craft: 19th, 20th, and 21st Century Acting Methods for the Stage, Tufts University
A course in acting aimed at enhancing self-confidence, oral expression, and creativity. Emphasis on concentration, motivation, and improvisation, and what it means to create a character and speak before an audience.

Masterclass — Camp: Notes on Gender-bending, Somerville Arts for Youth 

After the 2019 Met Gala blasted itself in the public spotlight, camp as a concept has been thrown around casually without really unpacking it's queer-of-color origin and significance. As a scholar of camp aesthetics and theatre practice, this master class would cover the specifics of gender as portrayed in camp theatre, as well as the opportunities and disadvantages of gender-bending in theatre through a workshop of "cross-gender" monologues and movement. While this is not a lesson on drag, the class will touch upon the activist nature of drag performance, RuPaul's Drag Race, and AIDS activism of ACT UP and beyond (using Susan Sontag as a guide). Pop culture and internet media is also discussed in regards to the memed question: "what is camp?". My hope is that students will come out of this master class with the tools to better play with gender on stage in a way that is optimistic, full of comedy, full of mistakes, open to discovery, and fully camp. 

Cubing the Scenery: Embodied Practice of Cubism with its Descendants, *SYLLABUS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST*

Cubism is an era of the highly influential visual arts style of the early 20th century, spearheaded by the works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris. Though, it is not far removed from our current discourse regarding identity politics. In Hannah Gadsby’s form-shattering Netflix comedy special, Nanette (2018), the comedian offers her own thoughts on the movement: “Cubism is important. Picasso freed us from the slavery of having to reproduce three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional surface. Picasso said, “You can have all the perspectives at once—from above, from below. All the perspectives at once!” What a hero. But tell me, are any of those perspectives a woman’s? Well, then, I’m not interested.” Gadsby’s work destabilizes the artist/art divide, offering potent commentary in light of the #MeToo movement. With 20th century performance theory and the historical context of Cubism embedded in the class, Cubing the Scenery focuses on feminist and queer-of-color critiques, allowing students to contend with (and develop) a Cubist [Dys/U]topia as a final performance in class-wide coalition. Smaller groups will focus on areas of identity, genre, and medium to devise a reclaimed (yet historically-based) Cubist mise-en-scène: its art, its critics, and its influence on theatre, dance, performance, contemporary art, and the media-driven culture of the present. 

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