Faculty | Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies

TDPS Faculty

Senate Faculty

Brandi Wilkins Catanese

Associate Professor / Associate Dean of the 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 / Department Vice Chair

Abigail De Kosnik is an Associate Professor in the Berkeley Center for New Media (BCNM) and the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS), and an affiliated faculty member of Gender & Women’s Studies, Film & Media, and Folklore. She researches histories...Read more about Abigail De Kosnik

Timmia Hearn DeRoy

Assistant Professor

Timmia Hearn DeRoy is a practitioner and scholar of social justice-based theatre and film. She directs, writes, produces, dramaturgs, and teaches. She was a founding member of the Trinidad and Tobago PRIDE Arts Festival, former Director of the School for the Arts at the Trinidad Theatre...Read more about Timmia Hearn DeRoy

Julia Fawcett

Associate Professor

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

Philip Kan Gotanda

Professor

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

Karina Gutiérrez

Assistant Professor

Karina Gutiérrez’s work focuses on the intersection of politics and performance, with a concentration on how digital interventions, institutionalization efforts and historical narrative have affected the development and sustainability of social and politically engaged performance companies and...Read more about Karina Gutiérrez

Shannon Jackson

Cyrus & Michelle Hadidi Professor of the Arts & Humanities

Shannon Jackson is the Cyrus and Michelle Hadidi Professor of the Arts & Humanities, Department Chair of History of Art, and former Associate Vice Chancellor for the Arts + Design. She also recently assumed leadership of the...Read more about Shannon Jackson

Roshanak Kheshti

Associate Professor / Head Graduate Advisor

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. She is winner of the 2024 Dance Studies Association Mid-Career Award and a 2023 UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science Beatriz Manz Faculty Award. Her recent book, Love...Read more about SanSan Kwan

Angela Marino

Associate Professor

Angela Marino's teaching and research focuses on performance and political cultures of the Southwest, Caribbean, and Latin America. She teaches classes on theater and performance studies theory, methods, and a praxis class called Teatro Lab. She also leads an interdisciplinary research...Read more about Angela Marino

Shannon Steen

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...Read more about Shannon Steen

Lisa Wymore

Professor

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

Rebecca J. Ennals

Lecturer: Stage Management

Rebecca J. Ennals (she/her) spent 21 seasons on the staff of San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, including 10 seasons as Artistic Director, where she oversaw all aspects of production, education, and artistic programming. Her projects at SF Shakes included directing 8 school tours and 6...Read more about Rebecca J. Ennals

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 "Bear" Graham

Continuing Lecturer: Dance

James "Bear" Graham is a San Francisco based choreographer, performer, and educator. James Graham Dance Theatre (JGDT), 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...Read more about James "Bear" 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 & Directing

Margo Hall is an award-winning actor, director, playwright, and educator, as well as the Artistic Director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre (LHT). She was awarded the 2021 Kenneth Rainin Fellowship in Theater and listed as one of the YBCA 100 honorees for 2020.

She was last seen onstage in...Read more about Margo Hall

Christopher Herold

Senior Continuing Lecturer: Acting & Directing

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

Dominique Fawn Hill

Lecturer: Costume Design

Dominique Fawn Hill is a Tony Award-nominated and Obie Award-winning costume designer for Broadway and film.

Dominique's designs include world premieres of plays and musicals produced at major venues such as The Public Theatre, Playwright’s Horizons, Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC, The...Read more about Dominique Fawn Hill

Jessica Berman Hirigoyen

Continuing Lecturer: Acting, Voice & Speech

Jessica Berman Hirigoyen is a dialect, voice, text, and acting coach. She has taught at UC Berkeley, American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.), and Academy of Art University. Recent dialect and vocal coaching credits include: Co-Head of Voice and Dialects: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child from...Read more about Jessica Berman Hirigoyen

Laxmi Kumaran

Undergraduate Academic Advisor / Continuing Lecturer: Technical Theater

Laxmi Kumaran has been with TDPS for over a decade. In addition to her role as Undergraduate Academic Advisor, she is a Continuing Lecturer for Technical Theater courses. She also teaches Stage Management in the Theater & Performance Studies Department at Stanford University. Laxmi...Read more about Laxmi Kumaran

Daniel Larlham

Lecturer: Acting & Performance Studies

Daniel Larlham is a theatre-maker and performance researcher with a Ph.D. in Theatre from Columbia University and an M.F.A. from NYU’s Graduate Acting Program.

Daniel has held academic appointments at UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, Yale University’s...Read more about Daniel Larlham

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

Susannah Martin

Lecturer: Acting

A director, teacher, performer, and theatre maker of Tunisian heritage, and a Sephardic/Mizrahi Jewish feminist- activist-artist, Susannah has taught, directed, and performed for organizations throughout the Bay Area including: Shotgun Players (Company Member), A.C.T., California Shakespeare...Read more about Susannah Martin

Michael Socrates Moran

Continuing 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 graduated from UC San Diego’s world-...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

Lana Palmer

Lecturer: Sound Design

Lana Palmer is a Canadian-born, San Francisco-based artist working in theatre, film, and music. As a sound designer and composer, she is proud to have worked with many leading theatre companies in the Bay Area and throughout North America. Her recent...Read more about Lana Palmer

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

Continuing Lecturer: Acting & Movement for Actors

Patrick Russell is a professional actor and director whose work has been seen in theaters across the Bay Area. Most recent acting credits include The Play that Goes Wrong at San Francisco Playhouse and the feature film, Moss Beach. His work has been recognized with nominations from both the Bay...Read more about Patrick Russell

Arnel Sancianco

Lecturer: Scenic Design

Arnel Sancianco is a Filipino-American award-winning set and production designer originally from San Diego, CA. Arnel received his B.A. in Drama with an honors in design from UC Irvine and his M.F.A. in Stage Design from Northwestern University.

During his time in Chicago, Arnel designed...Read more about Arnel Sancianco

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

TDPS Faculty

Senate Faculty

Lecturers

Emeriti

In Memoriam

In Memoriam: Professor Emeritus Robert Goldsby, 1926–2024

In Memoriam: Professor Emeritus Mel Gordon, 1947–2018