Dear TDPS Community,
It’s been another busy, productive year in the department! Of course, our activities have been set against a tumultuous time on campus and in the world. COVID abides, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine continue, the climate changes precipitously, and US politics remain in turmoil. I salute our faculty, staff, and, especially, our students for confronting these and other challenges with creativity, intelligence, and grace.
We have much to be proud of this past year. We staged stirring theatrical productions of Wintertime, The River Bride (featuring up-and-coming student designers), and The Wednesday Club (Joe Goode's final show for TDPS!). Our Fall Choreography Showcase highlighted the work of emerging student dance-makers, and Berkeley Dance Project showcased not only our faculty and a guest choreographer, but also six student-created pieces. We celebrated the release of Professor Shannon Steen's latest book (The Creativity Complex), and our Ph.D. students shared their fascinating research on topics ranging from hip-hop poetics (Vincente Perez) to Asian American identity in ballroom dance (Crystal Song).
In April, we were delighted to launch our multiyear Indigenous Performing Arts Residency with AlterTheater's staged reading of Dine Nishli (i am a sacred being), or A Boarding School Play by Blossom Johnson. In partnership with the Arts Research Center, this program supports a three-year residency for a local performance company to produce the work of a selected indigenous artist each year. We also hosted the formidable performer and activist Cat Brooks for a weeklong residency, and welcomed 35 inspiring guest artists and scholars for class visits. We capped off the year with a rousing commencement address by comedian and director W. Kamau Bell.
Facing the turbulent state of the world, our small but mighty department carries on! As a community of artists, scholars, teachers, and learners, we continue to advocate collectively for the crucial role that performance can play in motivating audiences, in modeling empathy, and in envisioning new realities. We have a lot of exciting programming lined up for the upcoming academic year: a production of a Pulitzer Prize-nominated play, a new opera written by our own Philip Kan Gotanda, and so much more!
TDPS is nothing without the amazing people who labor to serve our students. I submit my humble gratitude to our hard-working staff and our devoted faculty. We say a fond farewell to three longtime community members who recently retired: Professor Peter Glazer, Professor Joe Goode, and costume director Wendy Sparks. Across more than 20 years, they each offered their tremendous talent and heart to the department. We thank them deeply. Alas, all things must change! We also welcome technical director Robin Maegawa, as well as incoming doctoral students Leenah, Ariah Henderson, Zachary Herring, and AeJay Mitchell.
We continue the department’s longstanding efforts towards diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging. Our dynamic lineup of shows and events, as well as our classes, our mentorship of students, and the trailblazing scholarship and artistic work of our faculty are the vehicles through which we forward the department mission of teaching performance as a mode of critical inquiry, creative expression, and public engagement.
I look forward to another engaging year!
All best wishes,
SanSan Kwan
Department Chair
A Dream Play
In October, TDPS senior Cristina Miller staged a workshop production of A Dream Play. Written by August Strindberg and adapted by Caryl Churchill, this classic of surrealist theater follows a goddess who visits Earth in human form and encounters nearly 40 characters on her quest to understand humanity.
Wintertime
Written by visionary playwright Charles Mee, Wintertime explores the joy, pathos, and vast power of love—with its capacity to both save and destroy us. Christopher Herold, who leads the department's acting program, directed the talented ensemble cast of 10 actors.
Fall Choreography Showcase
As a fully student-created and student-run show, the showcase featured the work of 12 choreographers, 22 dancers, 3 designers, 2 stage managers, and several crew members. Dance faculty selected three pieces from the showcase, including Freddie Glavey's Fragments II (pictured above), to re-stage as part of Berkeley Dance Project in Zellerbach Playhouse.
Let There Be Light
For her honors thesis project, TDPS senior Lilea Alvarez researched the impact of artistic advocacy for sex trafficking survivors. She supplemented her research with the creation of an original dance piece, Let There Be Light, which abstractly represented a survivor's journey from isolation to connection and hope. Public performances of the piece also served as fundraisers for the advocacy organization Generate Hope.
The River Bride
Set in a small Brazilian fishing village, Marisela Treviño Orta's play follows two sisters who must choose between familial duty and personal desire after a mysterious man emerges from the Amazon River. Directed by Karina Gutiérrez, the production featured stunning design work by students Amy Abad (lighting), Lee Garber-Patel (costumes), and Mirin Scassellati (scenic).
Berkeley Dance Project 2024
In its return to a festival-style concert, Berkeley Dance Project featured a diverse array of nine new pieces, including the awe-inspiring Fishbowl, choreographed by Tatianna Steiner and performed by members of the student group Danceworx (pictured above).
The Wednesday Club
For his final bow in the department, Professor Joe Goode created an intimate musical based on songs from the repertoire of the Joe Goode Performance Group. The Wednesday Club follows a group of LGBTQ+ drama nerds—including a gay cowboy, a slam poetry genius, a revolutionary poet, a naturalist, a couple of starry-eyed lovers, and a doomsayer—who gather each week to test out their theatrical innovations in a church basement.
¿Apoco Si?
In a combined series of short dances, Rebekah Joy's ¿Apoco Si? captured moments of growing up Chicane and trying to navigate personal identity between American and Mexican culture. The workshop production incorporated elements of tango, merengue, salsa, modern dance, jazz, and ballet.
2024 Commencement Ceremony
Guest speaker W. Kamau Bell, an Emmy Award-winning comedian, director, and producer, offered advice to graduates in a humorous speech marked by his signature brand of social commentary. “I am not qualified to be here as someone without a college degree," he quipped, before recounting how artists and activists in the Bay Area had shaped him as a person and a comedian. Among his advice to graduates: Know when you need help, and know when you have to forge your own path.
Left to right: Peter Glazer, Joe Goode, and Wendy Sparks.
Professor Peter Glazer retired in December after more than two decades on the TDPS faculty. "Teaching for TDPS has been the most gratifying and fulfilling work of my life," he said. "From my brilliant and passionate colleagues to the always inspiring Berkeley students, I feel incredibly lucky to have been a part of this department since 2001." Peter has relocated to western Massachusetts to continue working as a theater director.
In June, we said farewell to Professor Joe Goode as he retired from the TDPS faculty after 23 years. "I have treasured my brilliant colleagues and the appetite for out-of-the-box thinking for which Berkeley is famous," he said. Joe will continue working with his San Francisco-based company, Joe Goode Performance Group.
We also recently celebrated longtime costume director Wendy Sparks as she concluded her 27-year career with TDPS. "I am so thankful that I decided to take a costume design class here in my senior year," she said. "I had no idea it would become my life, but wow, what an awesome ride it has been!"
This summer, we welcomed Robin Maegawa as our new technical director. Robin studied theater at the University of Southern California, and they previously worked at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
We're also delighted to welcome a new cohort of four Ph.D. students to the Graduate Group in Performance Studies: Leenah researches Islamic dream theory, surveillance, and subversive radio histories. Ariah Henderson explores food as a performance mechanism and means of resistance in creative communities during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Zachary Herring blends evolutionary theory, diasporic fugitive practice, science in vivo, and environmentalism. AeJay Mitchell focuses on the decolonization of the theatrical canon, the black avant-garde, and queer political performance practice.
Lena Chen (Ph.D. Student) was selected for the American Theatre & Drama Society's Emerging Scholars Award and will present her paper at the 2024 Annual Conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. She co-produced CELESTE(pictured above), a community devised performance at the former site of a soap factory in Northwest Berkeley, with Evan Sakuma. Mother of Whores, a three-channel video performance she made with Juliana Fadil-Luchkiw, will debut at the Feminist Border Arts Film Festival. She won the Golden Quill Award for Excellence in Written Journalism and the Ray Sprigle Memorial Award from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania for an essay on her research on Pittsburgh’s Chinatown. Learn more at LenaChen.com
Timmia Hearn DeRoy (third from right) is working on a documentary film in Guyana. (Photo by Delnay Dehnert)
Timmia Hearn DeRoy (Assistant Professor) is spending the summer in Georgetown, Guyana, working on her feature documentary directorial debut in collaboration with local film production company Maribunta Pictures. The documentary is auto-ethnographic in nature, and follows the research journey of Fulbright scholar Pere DeRoy as she returns to her childhood home to interrogate why her adolescent fears of pregnancy and parenthood continue to manifest not just for her, but for Black and brown populations everywhere she has lived. The documentary examines how a trauma informed storytelling practice can profoundly impact social science research, and change the way data is collected and understood. This project crosses disciplines and expands Timmia’s Social Justice-based directing practice to new fields.
Chelsea Gregory (third from right) performing with the Belonging Resident Company at the 2024 Othering & Belonging Conference. (Photo by Lauren Stevenson)
Chelsea Gregory (Lecturer), a dance theater artist and cultural organizer in her fifth year teaching for TDPS, began some exciting collaborations with the Othering & Belonging Institute (OBI) this past semester. After weaving OBI frameworks into her courses for years, she was invited to join the Belonging Resident Company. The first engagement was a series of performances and facilitations for OBI's conference in April, which also featured the wonderful work of TDPS students Ruchita Verma and Cheryl Yang. Chelsea and several members of the ensemble are continuing to offer workshops, performances, and applied theater training through the Belonging Resident Playback Company.
Dominique Fawn Hill (Lecturer) is the costume designer for the world premiere of Derecho by Noelle Viñas. Performances run from July 23 to August 13 at La Jolla Playhouse (San Diego).
A promotional image for Two Doors, a new dance piece by SanSan Kwan. (Photo by Robbie Sweeny)
SanSan Kwan (Professor & Department Chair) will premiere her dance piece Two Doors at the Mondavi Center for the Arts at UC Davis, October 17–20, 2024. Two Doors explores the viscerality of anti-Asian violence and the sovereignty that we wrest for ourselves in response. Dancers experiment with exits and entrances, weight sharing and weight bearing, surveillance and care, playing with the kinetics of in/visibility, anticipated harm, redress, and repair. SanSan also recently won the Dance Studies Association's 2024 Mid-Career Award.
A promotional image for Megan Lowe Dances' Just A Shadow (Photo by RJ Muna)
Megan Lowe (Program Associate, TDPS Alum) premiered two full length productions for Megan Lowe Dances: Gathering Pieces of Peace, a dynamic dance theater work that explored mixed-race Asian American Pacific Islander experiences, at ODC Theater; and Just a Shadow, a performance journey that honors memories of lost loved ones, as the featured artist of United States of Asian America Festival. Her site-specific dance with Johnny Huy Nguyen for The David Ireland House, HOME(in)STEAD, won an Izzie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance. Megan also presented works at KQED Live, Forbes Island, Flora & Ferment Ciderhouse, Oakland Chinatown’s Lantern Festival, and University of San Francisco. She performed with Flyaway Productions and Dance Brigade, and was the Stage Director for MudWater Turf Theatre. She is currently working on a vertical dance duet with Roel Seeber for San Francisco Aerial Arts Festival. Learn more at MeganLoweDances.com
Christopher Herold (Continuing Lecturer, TDPS Alum) will play Leonardo da Vinci in Central Works' production of The Contest.The play imagines a contest between da Vinci and Michelangelo to paint a magnificent battle scene on one of two opposing walls in the Great Hall of the Republic. Performances run from October 19 to November 17 at the Berkeley City Club.
Angela Marino (Associate Professor), along with two collaborating researchers, Felipe Kan and Javier Mateos-Campos with the Critical Perspectives on Democracy + Media Lab, are pleased to receive a $50,000 grant for a project known as "Dialogues of Knowledge." The project expands a long-practiced Mayan dialectical method in efforts to “deepen words, not weapons” through cultural arts and popular education. The grant will support graduate and undergraduate apprentices and allow the research collective to practice bilingual dialogue circles in the greater Bay Area and Central Valley of California. Professor Marino also presented a talk at Miami University this year on Festivals + Governance. Learn more at AngelaMarino.net
The Democracy + Media Lab displays a collection of artwork and protest posters at the Latinx Research Center. (Photo courtesy of Angela Marino)
Vincente Perez (Ph.D. Candidate) is the 2024 BCNM Lyman Fellow and a 2024–2025 UC Dissertation-Year Fellow. His debut poetry chapbook Other Stories to Tell Ourselves won the Eric Hoffer Finalist Award. His poem "Make Her Dance" was runner up in the Philadelphia Stories' National Prize for Poetry, and he was a finalist for the Third Coast Poetry Contest. He has forthcoming publications in the Media Crease anthology, The No Limit Reader: Music, Place, and Space in the Dirty South, and many more.
Dio Ramirez (Theater Production Supervisor, TDPS Alum) and fellow alum Kaz Valtchev are producing Stare Into the Void and You'll See Stars in collaboration with Playground's Free-Play Festival. The play centers around a cast of LGBTQ friends who confront their challenges with mental health while camping in the woods...haunted by a ghost? Tickets are free! Performances run August 16–18 online and at Potrero Stage in San Francisco. Learn more at PlayGround-SF.org
Patrick Russell (Lecturer) directed Stupid F***ing Bird and She Kills Monsters for San Francisco State in 2023/24. This summer he will be teaching two acting classes for TDPS. In August he will begin rehearsals for The Play That Goes Wrong at San Francisco Playhouse. Performances run from September 21 to November 9. Learn more at SFPlayhouse.org
Vincente Perez's debut poetry chapbook (left) and a special issue of Theater (right) featuring an article by Rebecca Struch.
Shannon Steen (Associate Professor) wrote a new book, The Creativity Complex: Art, Tech, and the Seduction of an Idea which explores how notions of creativity have evolved to serve the goals of neoliberalism—and what we can do about it.
Rebecca Struch (Ph.D. Candidate) contributed to a special issue of Yale Theater. "Expanding Devised Theater" is a collection of essays and dialogues from the artists and scholars who participated in the 2023 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute at Pig Iron Theatre in Philadelphia. You are invited to read Rebecca’s short provocation, The Politics of Refusal in Devised Performance: When Trusting the Process Isn’t Enough.
Latanya d. Tigner (Continuing Lecturer) presented her new choreographic work, 5th-Quarter Bantaba on July 13 at the Malonga Casquelourd Center in Oakland. The project bridges three movement and musical traditions: Sabar drum and dance (Wolof culture); Djembe/Dun Dun drum and dance (Mande/Malinke culture); and marching bands from southern Historyically Black Colleges and Universities. Project collaborators include Latanya d. Tigner (choreographer), Djembefola Magatte Fall (musical director), Alseny Soumah (cultural advisor), and Jackson State University’s Sonic Boom of the South drum majors and drum line.
1950s
Richard "Dick" Capp '58 earned an M.F.A. from UCLA Film School in 1976. He is now retired after making several short films and doing commercial flying for 52 years.
1970s
Frieda Zolan (Fritzi Winnick) '70 is currently teaching her grandchildren Yang Style of Tai Chi and a few Kung Fu exercizes as well. She hopes to direct them and other kids in Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. Occasionally, she teaches drama in elementary schools as a substitute teacher. She is also an acrylic and collage artist whose work is viewable at FriedasArtwork.com
Linda Warren (Gallatin) '71 had a meaningful career in employee and career development—teaching numerous classes in interpersonal communication, stress management, and team building in various companies. Going to UC was a major highlight of her life. It allowed her to become the creative person she was meant to be.
David Ginsberg (Ginnes) '71–73 practiced civil litigation for four years, then produced computer graphics/VFX until 2000, then served as general counsel of a software company until 2022. He is now retired and would love to hear from any of his old Dramatic Arts classmates.
Stephanie Willman '76 danced professionally in several modern ballet dance companies for over 25 years. After sustaining a torn Achilles tendon, she embarked on a career teaching Pilates. She is presently teaching/training Pilates in New Jersey. She loves what she does, and would never have imagined a career having danced her whole life. She might add that having graduated from UC Berkeley was one the most important accomplishments in her lifetime!
Charles Ray '77 moved from Oakland to Arnold, CA after the passing of his wife, Diane Colantonio '78. Charles frequently travels to visit other UC grads, high school friends, and relatives all over the country. His two grown children, Alec and Marissa, live in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Derek Duarte '78 retired from Santa Clara University where he was a senior lecturer and resident lighting designer for 27 years. Derek is relocating to Minneapolis and continuing to work as a free-lance lighting designer. Learn about his work at Derek-Duarte-Lighting.com
Stan Lai's Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land at the Huichang Theatre Village (Photo by Wang Kai for China Daily)
1980s
Stan Lai, Ph.D. '83 inaugurated the Huichang Theatre Village in his father's hometown in rural China on January 24 and premiered a new play, Flower in the Mirror, Moon in the Water. His play River/Cloud will tour China this year, starting at the Wuzhen Theatre Festival. Many of his other plays are touring and can be seen at his base in Shanghai, Theatre Above including The Village and One One Zero Eight. A Dream Like A Dream will perform in Taipei starting December 24 and Shanghai starting January 25 (different productions and casts). The Summer 2021 issue of TDR featured the article, An Illusion that Mirrors a Dream: The Storytelling of Stan Lai. Stan's son-in-law, Pawo Choyning Dorji, wrote and directed The Monk and the Gun, which was shortlisted at the Oscars for Best International Feature.
Amy Lincoln '81 went a completely different direction with her career—in corporate America. She has retired from that world and has taken up visual arts very diligently. Her artwork includes oil painting, gouache, watercolor, and digital arts. She participates in art shows, and works to express her creativity. "Many thanks to UC Berkeley for the discipline it instilled in me," Amy said. "I never give up on following my dreams."
1990s
Tiffany Lee Brown '91 works at the confluence of performance, voice, art, and writing. After UC Berkeley, she went on to earn an M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts. Her current manifestations include narrating nature walks on the Burning Tarot podcast, writing and performing poetry, writing a memoir, delineating astrological charts for clients, parenting a creative child, and writing a small-town newspaper column, "In the Pines." She is also the consulting Editorial Director for the design and branding firm Plazm. Learn more at TiffanyLeeBrown.com
Kevin Koster '91 continues to work as a 1st Assistant Director in episodic television production, currently on the third season of P-Valley in Atlanta, and recently on the second season of Bookie in Los Angeles.
Allen Kuharski, M.A. '86, Ph.D. '91 lives in Philadelphia and is Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scholar in the Department of Theater at Swarthmore College. He teaches part-time in the Pig Iron School's M.F.A. Program in Devised Performance. Allen also teaches Chinese students every summer in Beijing and Shanghai. With Pig Iron's Quinn Bauriedel, Allen co-directed an NEH Institute on Devised Ensemble Physical Theatre in Philadelphia 2023 (which they propose to repeat in 2025). His article on the Institute was published in Yale Theater. Allen returned to Poland in March, where he taught a four-day workshop for dance theater students in Katowice. Learn more about Allen's work at Swarthmore.edu
Book covers for Lamentations: A Requiem for Queer Suicide by Patrick Anderson, Ph.D. '05, and Model Minority Masochism by Takeo Rivera, Ph.D. '17.
2000s
Patrick Anderson, Ph.D. '05 is the current Chair of the Department of Communication at UC San Diego. He is also finishing his year as a Guggenheim Fellow. His next book, The Lamentations: A Requiem For Queer Suicide will be released by Fordham University Press in September 2024.
Marni Davis '05 is a middle school drama teacher in West Sonoma County.
Santia Andrews '07 had an unforgettable experience performing at Carnaval over Memorial Weekend with the electrifying dance company Amor do Samba. She's thrilled to announce that they have invited her to join their dynamic company! But that's not all—this summer, Santia has four dances competing in the prestigious World Dance Championship. You can also spot her in an Apple commercial!
Deborist Benjamin Burke '07 is a marriage and family therapist. On September 19, she will lead a one-day seminar based on her book, When My Daddy Became My Mommy: Navigating with the Child Whose Parent is Transitioning. The seminar will be hosted by the Glorious Healing Heart Institute and presented internationally online. Continuing education units are available. For more information, call 805-402-4777.
Kelly Rafferty, Ph.D. '10 (second from right) at the Television Academy Honors.
2010s
Cai (Caitlin) Kagawa '10 is a working member of IATSE 705 (Motion Picture Costumers) at Western Costume Co. in the Uniform Division working with military and municipal insignia and research by day. By night, they are a tabletop gaming performer and creativor using their knowledge as a designer to help build worlds and characters for use in published games such as the recently released 2nd Edition of For the Queen from Darrington Press. As an award-winning performer, they specialize in stories of radical joy and the intersection of love and grief with TransplanarRPG as a core cast member of The Chaos Protocol
Kelly Rafferty, Ph.D. '10 won a Peabody Award for her work as a consulting producer on the Showtime docu-series We Need to Talk About Cosby. She followed up that win with an Emmy Award and the Television Academy Honors for producing the HBO documentary, 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed. She serves as VP, Creative for W. Kamau Bell’s Oakland-based company Who Knows Best Productions. Learn more at KellyRafferty.com
Brianna Mercado '13 was Associate Choreographer for The Public Theater Mobile Unit's production of The Comedy of Errors This bilingual musical version of Shakespeare's comedy brings free performances to all five boroughs of New York City.
Takeo Rivera, Ph.D. '17 won the 2024 Honorable Mention for the Media, Performance, and Visual Studies Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies for his book Model Minority Masochism: Performing the Cultural Politics of Asian American Masculinity This marks the second consecutive year that a TDPS alum won Honorable Mention for this prize (the 2023 Honorable Mention having gone to Hentyle Yapp for Minor China). He was joined at the awards ceremony by fellow Ph.D. alumni Natalia Duong, Miyoko Conley, and Lashon Daley. Currently, Takeo is up for tenure in the English department at Boston University.
Joe Ayers '18 worked professionally in Bay Area theater for two years post-graduation. He was accepted into the prestigious FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training and graduated with his M.F.A. in 2023. For the last year, he’s been seen on stages around the Bay Area, playing Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing at New Canon Theatre Company, Jordan in Significant Other at Los Altos Stage Company, Casey in The Legend of Georgia McBride at Center REP, and David in Torch Song at Marin Theatre. He’s also an Adjunct Instructor of Theatre Arts at Chabot College. This fall, you can catch him on stage as Max in The Play That Goes Wrong at San Francisco Playhouse!
Hernán Angulo '19 is back in the Bay Area for the summer to perform in The Lifespan of a Fact at Aurora Theatre Company (June 20 to July 21). He will also teach audition technique for American Conservatory Theater’s Summer Training Congress.
Hernán Angulo performs in The Lifespan of a Fact at Aurora Theatre Company through July 21, 2024.
2020s
Salwa Meghjee '20 will be attending the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard this Fall. Learn about her work at SalwaMeghjee.com
Priya Roy '21 produced her first show, Lover's Inferno, an immersive live music and aerial concert exploring heartbreak and hell! She is continuing these Aerial Acoustics productions with her co-producer, who is a Cal alum too! She has a band called Velvet Affairs who play in NYC regularly, fusing genres and languages—all love songs! She is also in a queer Asian play, runs a support group for POC artists, started doing burlesque professionally, hosts wellness events with live music and meditation, and has her debut album coming out this year. She is learning how to manage freelance full-time artist life with chronic illness and learning how to not give up on herself or her dreams. Learn more at PriyaOnStage.com
Join TDPS for another inspiring season of theater and dance at an affordable price! Tickets for each show will go on sale three months in advance at tdps.berkeley.edu/events
Playhouse Production
Everybody
By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Susannah Martin
November 7–10, 2024
This modern and comedic riff on a 15th-century morality play follows Everybody—chosen from amongst the cast by lottery at each performance—as they journey through life's greatest mystery: the meaning of living.
Everybody was a 2018 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Drama.
Studio Production
Fall Choreography Showcase
Directed by Lisa Wymore
December 5–6, 2024
Our ever-popular annual showcase features student-created solos and duets that reflect a diverse range of influences, ideas, and dance styles.
Studio Production
Lysistrata: A Woman's Translation
By Aristophanes
Translated by Drue Robinson
Directed by Timmia Hearn DeRoy
March 6–9, 2025
This modern verse translation of Aristophanes' classic comedy blends heightened language and 21st-century sensibilities to explore the power of the sex strike. Now set in a futuristic, drag-influenced, underground bar, this production will address issues of bodily autonomy, sexual and gender agency, and what we are willing to sacrifice in the face of continuous war.
Playhouse Production
Berkeley Dance Project 2025
Directed by Lisa Wymore
May 1–4, 2025
Our spring dance concert celebrates Berkeley's vibrant community of movers and makers. This edition will feature fresh choreography by faculty member Philip Agyapong, guest artists Sammay Dizon and Leyya Mona Tawil, and emerging student choreographers.
To Be Announced
New Play Reading Series
Directed by Evan Sakuma & Maria Silk
This unique collaboration brings undergraduate and graduate students together in a repertory company to produce two to three staged readings of new plays each semester.
Student-Directed Workshops
Directed by Paul Baliaouri, Olivia Freidenreich, and Kira Wefers
As laboratories for nascent work, TDPS workshops provide opportunities for student directors, choreographers, writers, and performers to develop ideas and put them into practice. A three-week rehearsal process culminates in two evenings of public performances.
UC Berkeley has been at the forefront of performance training and research for nearly 85 years. Your support enables us to continue in this tradition by offering first-rate classes in acting, dance, performance studies, stage management, and theatrical design; inviting renowned artists and scholars for lectures and master classes; presenting inspiring and affordable performances to the public; and advancing the outstanding research of our students and faculty. We invite you to join our community of supporters today.