Faculty & Lecturers

Senate Faculty

Brandi Wilkins Catanese

Associate Professor; Associate Dean, Graduate Division

Joint appointment in African American Studies, Affiliated faculty in Gender and Women’s Studies

Professor Catanese's work addresses the role of performance in constructing our understanding of black identity, both through aesthetic production and the practices of everyday life. She is the...Read more about Brandi Wilkins Catanese

Abigail De Kosnik

Associate Professor; Director, Berkeley Center for New Media

Abigail De Kosnik is the Director of the Berkeley Center for New Media, an Associate Professor in the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, and an affiliated faculty member of Gender...Read more about Abigail De Kosnik

Julia Fawcett

Associate Professor, Head Graduate Advisor

Julia Fawcett's research looks at the origins of concepts of privacy and publicity—as well as of domesticity, imperialism, and urban space—in Restoration and eighteenth-century literature and performance in the circum-Atlantic world. Her first book,...Read more about Julia Fawcett

Peter Glazer

Associate Professor

Professor Glazer is a professional director and playwright whose plays, adaptations, collaborations and directing projects include Woody Guthrie’s American Song (Bay Area Drama Critics award, with Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations Off-Broadway and Joseph Jefferson Award...Read more about Peter Glazer

Joe Goode

Professor

Professor Goode is Artistic Director of Joe Goode Performance Group with whom he has performed in the U.S., Canada, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. His performance installations have been commissioned by the Krannert Art Museum, the M. H. DeYoung Museum, Capp Street Project, and The...Read more about Joe Goode

Philip Kan Gotanda

Professor, Department Vice Chair

Over the last four decades, playwright Philip Kan Gotanda has been a major influence in the broadening of our definition of theater in America. The author of one of the largest bodies of Asian American-themed works, he has been instrumental in bringing stories of Asians in the United States to...Read more about Philip Kan Gotanda

Shannon Jackson

Professor

Shannon Jackson is the Cyrus and Michelle Hadidi Professor of Rhetoric and of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, and former Associate Vice Chancellor for the Arts + Design. Jackson’s research focuses on two overlapping domains: 1) collaborations across visual, performing, and media art...Read more about Shannon Jackson

Roshanak Kheshti

Associate Professor

Roshanak Kheshti is an anthropologist, feminist, queer and race theorist, born in Tehran, Iran, and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. Her work sits at the intersection of sound, the senses, film and performance studies with an emphasis on diaspora and psychoanalysis. She is the author of...Read more about Roshanak Kheshti

SanSan Kwan

Professor, Department Chair

SanSan’s research interests include dance studies, Asian American studies, and performance studies. Her recent book, Love Dances: Loss and Mourning in Intercultural Collaboration...Read more about SanSan Kwan

Angela Marino

Associate Professor

Angela Marino is author of Populism and Performance in the Bolivarian Revolution (Northwestern University Press, 2018); co-editor of Festive Devils in the Americas (Seagull Press/University of Chicago Press, 2015) and is published in the Latin American Theater Review (...Read more about Angela Marino

Shannon Steen

Associate Professor; Associate Dean for Programs & Planning, College of Letters & Science

Shannon Steen writes and teaches about a variety of topics, but primarily about performance in its social and political contexts. Her book The Creativity Complex: Art, Tech, and the Seduction of an Idea will be published with the University of Michigan Press in 2023. Prior to that she...Read more about Shannon Steen

Lisa Wymore

Professor; Faculty Advisor, Berkeley Arts+Design

Lisa Wymore completed her graduate study at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, where she was awarded a Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship, an Outstanding Achievement Award, and a Moe Family Award for her creativity. After graduating with an M.F.A. in Dance in 1998...Read more about Lisa Wymore

Lecturers

Philip Agyapong

Lecturer: Dance

Philip Agyapong is a dance teacher and researcher from Ghana who currently lives in California. At the University of Ghana, he earned his dance education by studying African dance forms from the rich cultural heritage and traditions of the Ga-Adangbe, Ewe, Fon, Akan, and Dagomba in West Africa....Read more about Philip Agyapong

Sima Belmar

Continuing Lecturer: Performance Studies

Sima Belmar earned her Ph.D. in Performance Studies from TDPS in 2015, and holds an M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Her scholarly writing has been published in The Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, Performance Matters...Read more about Sima Belmar

Nancy Carlin

Lecturer: Acting, Public Speaking

Nancy Carlin is a director, actor, writer, dialect coach, and acting teacher. A former company member of the American Conservatory Theater and associate artist with California Shakespeare Theater, she has performed and directed extensively in regional theaters, including A.C.T., Berkeley...Read more about Nancy Carlin

Iu-Hui Chua

Lecturer: Dance

Iu-Hui Chua choreographs, performs, directs, and devises physical theater, dance, and video performance. She explores the intersection of somatics, performance, process, and creativity.

She was a member of Anna Halprin's Sea Ranch Collective, an associate teacher for Ms. Halprin, and is...Read more about Iu-Hui Chua

Srijani Ghosh

Continuing Lecturer: Performance Studies

Srijani Ghosh earned her Ph.D. in English from Michigan State University. Her dissertation, “From Chantilly Lace to Chanel: Commodity Worship in Chick Lit,” is a literary sociological study of 20th and 21st century women’s popular fiction, and investigates the genre of chick lit as a site for...Read more about Srijani Ghosh

James Graham

Continuing Lecturer: Dance

James Graham is a San Francisco based choreographer, performer, and teacher. James Graham Dance Theatre presents the work of James Graham while also curating the work of others, namely in Dance Lovers…duets by couples, crushes, and comrades, an annual show of duets around Valentine’s...Read more about James Graham

Chelsea Gregory

Lecturer: Performance Studies

Chelsea Gregory (she/her) is a community-engaged artist, educator, cultural organizer, equity and restorative justice practitioner with over two decades of experience working at the intersections of arts and social change. She has collaborated with Urban Bush Women, Cornerstone Theater...Read more about Chelsea Gregory

Margo Hall

Continuing Lecturer: Acting

Margo Hall is an award winning actor, director, playwright and educator.

Margo teaches Acting I and II, Emerging Works, and Film as Art at Chabot Community College. She has also taught Scene Study and Acting Workshops at the American Conservatory Theater MFA Program, and the Berkeley...Read more about Margo Hall

Christopher Herold

Continuing Lecturer: Acting, Directing

A recipient of the Extraordinary Teaching In Extraordinary Times Award for 2021, Mr. Herold teaches Advanced Acting and Directing for TDPS. His directing credits at Berkeley include productions of Stupid F##king Bird, 70 Scenes of Halloween, Metamorphoses, ...Read more about Christopher Herold

Jessica Berman Hirigoyen

Lecturer: Acting, Voice & Speech

Jessica Berman Hirigoyen is a dialect, voice, text, and acting teacher and coach. She currently teaches at UC Berkeley and the American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.). Recent dialect and vocal coaching credits include: ...Read more about Jessica Berman Hirigoyen

Laxmi Kumaran

Continuing Lecturer: Stage Management

Laxmi Kumaran is a Continuing Lecturer at UC Berkeley where she teaches Stage Management and Technical Theater courses. She also teaches similar courses at Stanford University. In addition to her teaching experience, Laxmi is the Production Stage Manager at California Shakespeare Theater and was...Read more about Laxmi Kumaran

Erik K. Raymond Lee

Lecturer: Dance

Born in Oakland, Erik K. Raymond Lee is a dance artist and youth advocate. He began his formal training at UC Berkeley where he earned a BA in Dance & Performance Studies and a BA in Art Practice with a concentration in painting in 2010. Erik earned his MFA in Dance from Mills...Read more about Erik K. Raymond Lee

Domenique Lozano

Continuing Lecturer: Acting

Ms. Lozano has served on the TDPS faculty since 2014 and has taught throughout the acting sequence. Additionally, she directed the fall 2018 TDPS production of Tartuffe, as well as the TDPS webisode series Curly Fries in 2020.

Ms. Lozano is a Bay Area based director,...Read more about Domenique Lozano

Michael Socrates Moran

Lecturer: Acting, Directing

Michael Socrates Moran grew up in Richmond, California before attending Boston University where he pursued his BFA. He has worked as a professional actor in regional theaters in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and at an off-Broadway house in New York City. He recently graduated from UC San Diego’...Read more about Michael Socrates Moran

Ray Oppenheimer

Lecturer: Lighting Design

Ray Oppenheimer is a San Francisco Bay Area based lighting designer, educator, scenographer, technologist, and creator who has been bringing his boundless curiosity, chimerical aesthetic, and Sisyphean perseverance to performance design and education since 2005. Ray graduated with a Master of...Read more about Ray Oppenheimer

Mark Rafael

Lecturer: Acting, Public Speaking

A graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, Mark has been an instructor in acting and theater at the University of California Berkeley, University of San Francisco, American Conservatory Theater, and the Academy of Art University. He is also a communications and speech coach for...Read more about Mark Rafael

Patrick Russell

Lecturer: Acting

Patrick Russell is a professional actor and director whose work has been seen in theaters across the Bay Area. Most recent acting credits include Noises Off at San Francisco Playhouse, As You Like It for Cal Shakes, Measure for Measure at Marin Shakespeare Company, and...Read more about Patrick Russell

Annie Smart

Continuing Lecturer: Scenic & Costume Design

Annie Smart initially trained as a singer, dancer, and actress at London's Arts Educational Trust before focusing on the visual side of theatre while taking a degree in Drama at Manchester. After post-graduate studies in Brechtian design at Nottingham University, she worked as resident designer/...Read more about Annie Smart

Latanya d. Tigner

Continuing Lecturer: Dance

Latanya d. Tigner has performed professionally with Dimensions Dance Theater within multidisciplinary works rooted in African diasporic dance forms since 1986. She holds a B.A. in Physical Education/Dance and a Master’s in Arts Administration. She directs Dimensions Dance Theater’s youth company...Read more about Latanya d. Tigner