Michelle Anderson

Fiscal Technician

Brian Barker

Vector Works, Adjunct Professor

Dr. Noreen C. Barnes PhD

Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor

Barry Bell

Acting & Directing, Associate Professor

blbell@vcu.edu

A professional actor since the age of seventeen, Mr. Bell has had a varied career in the entertainment industry. Ten years on the road in regional theatre, off and off-off Broadway, dinner theatre, outdoor drama and children's theatre, took him from New York to Florida, as far west as Oklahoma and Idaho and to Spain and France in shows ranging from The Odd Couple to The Misanthrope, from American Buffalo to Best little Whorehouse in Texas from The Tempest to Educating Rita. Mr. Bell followed the touring with eleven years as the artistic director of the Barn Theatre in Greensboro, NC. Directing over 117 shows. His directing credits include Brian Friels' Lovers, Greater Tuna, You Can't Take It With You, The Rainmaker, Wait Until Dark, On Golden Pond, The Mousetrap, How The Other Half Loves and over a dozen Musicals ranging from Chicago to Pump Boys and Dinettes to the campy Della's Diner as guest director for Northern Kentucky University. Mr. Bell also won critical acclaim for his production of Brecht on Brecht at the Theatre of Notre Dame in NYC. The last twenty years, he has spent working in Film and TV. His resume' includes; guest-starring roles on Matlock, Walker Texas Ranger, Dawson's Creek, Legacy, American Gothic, HBO's From the Earth to the Moon and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. On film he has appeared in Maximum Overdrive, Morning, Bruno, Reuben, Reuben, Doomsday Man, and three dozen other TV and Feature Films. Mr. Bell directed Hair, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Wait Until Dark, Dracula, The Who’s TOMMY and Dead Man’s Cell Phone for Theatre VCU. Onstage at VCU theatre he has performed Sir Anthony Absolute in The Rivals, Chebutykin in Three Sisters and Herr Schultz in Cabaret. In the summers for the last four years Mr. Bell has produced and directed Student Voices an informational play shown to all incoming freshmen and their parents. Mr. Bell is a Stanislavski trained actor whose influences include Adler, Hagan and Chekhov .He holds a BFA from The University of North Carolina, Greensboro and a MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is a member of Actors Equity and the Screen Actors Guild.

Glynn Brannan

Director of Public Relations and Graphic Design

gmbrannan@vcu.edu

Glynn Brannan joined the Theatre Department in November 2003. She has worked since 1998 as graphic designer and illustrator in Richmond Virginia, and previously in Boston Massachusetts. Her illustration work is currently syndicated in 30 different parenting publications throughout the country. As the former art director of Richmond Parents Monthly and FiftyPlus magazines Ms. Brannan won national recognition for her editorial layout and cover designs and illustrations. She also teaches Introduction to Drawing and Color Theory to Theatre VCU Design Tech and Stage Management Students.

Josh Chenard

Acting & Directing, Assistant Professor

Head of Performance

chenardjk@vcu.edu

Josh Chenard is a certified instructor of the Michael Chekhov Technique and is a candidate for certification as an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®. Josh was granted his Chekhov certification through the National Michael Chekhov Association and by the late Mala Powers, acknowledged world wide as the foremost authority on Mr. Chekhov’s technique. Versed in a variety of techniques and styles, Josh trained extensively with Ms. Powers as well as with Master Michael Chekhov teacher Lisa Dalton, one of the great mime artists of the 20th century, Tony Montanaro, international film actress Emmanuelle Chaulet, and vocal practitioners Frankie Armstrong, Patsy Rodenburg, and Catherine Fitzmaurice.

A popular teacher and acting coach on both coasts, Josh has led workshops and classes throughout the country including in Boston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Baltimore. Josh continues to coach privately, working with actors appearing on stage, network television, and feature films.

As an actor, Josh has worked in Educational, Regional, and Professional Theatre including at Acadia Repertory Theatre in Bar Harbor, Maine, the AYTB Theatre Company in Boston, Massachusetts, and at the University of Southern Maine where he garnered two Irene Ryan nominations and appeared in the American Premiere of Xavier Durringer’s A Taste of the Killing on the Tip of the Tongue. Other performances include roles in Frankenstein, Ten Little Indians, Crimes of the Heart, To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, What the Rabbi Saw, Rumors, The Flies, As Is, and Clay McLeod Chapman’s Junta High. As a director, Josh has worked in variety of schools and theaters recently directing Animal Farm at the Shafer Street Playhouse and Moliere’s Les Precieuses Ridicules at Virginia Commonwealth University. Other directing credits include David Hirson’s La Bete, The Crucible, Prelude to a Kiss, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, and Blithe Spirit. Josh is directing the Virginia Premiere of Lord of the Flies at the Henley Street Theatre Company in 2012. Josh earned his BA from the University of Southern Maine, his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, is a member of the Southeastern Theatre Conference and a respondent for the American College Theatre Festival.

Maura Cravey

Makeup Design, Adjunct Professor

Maura Lynch Cravey teaches Makeup and Wig Design.   She is a graduate of Theatre VCU with an MFA in Costume Design and Technology.  She has taught design and makeup at Virginia Commonwealth University, Murray State University, University of Virginia, and Fashion Design at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College.  In addition to designing for all of Swift Creek Mill Theatre productions, her work has been seen at the Nevada Ballet, Las Vegas, Dogwood Dell, Firehouse Theatre Project, African American Repertory Theatre, Ft Lee Playhouse, Yellow House Productions (film), Sibiu Theatre Festival in Romania, Theatre IV, Barksdale Theatre, Virginia Union University, SPARC, Richmond Shakespeare Festival, Blue Ridge Theatre Festival, and the Richmond Community Theater Guild.   She has received a Phoebe Award for Best Costume Design from the Richmond Times Dispatch Newspapers and the award for Best Costume Design in a Musical for the United States Army’s World Theatre Festival.  Her design for Urinetown was nominated for Best Costume Design by Richmond Theatre Critics' Circle.  Maura is an active member of SETC and USITT.

Patti D'Beck

Movement for the Actor and Musical Theatre, Assistant Professor

Adam Dorland

Scene Painting, Adjunct Professor

Amy Baumgartner Hutton

Stage Management, Assistant Professor

Toni-Leslie James

Director, Costume Design, Assistant Professor

Ron Keller

Head of Design, Associate Professor

David Leong

Chair, Department of Theatre & Professor

David S. Leong’s academic and professional career spans more than 36 years in academic and professional theatre, ballet, film, video and healthcare education.

Since 1996, as Chair and Producer of Theatre VCU, he has supervised over 75 full-length plays and musicals and attracted over 50 nationally and internationally recognized guest artists and directors. For the academic year 2001 – 02, David served as Chair of the VCU Departments of Theatre and Music. He is a member of the National Association of Schools of Theatre's accreditation team and serves on the Board of Trustees for the National Theatre Conference.  He received the 2006 Distinguished Award of Excellence from the VCU Office of the Dean and was recently cited by Richmond's Style Magazine as one of the most influential artists of the past 25 years. Under his supervision, Theatre VCU has collaborated with numerous campus and community organizations including the Richmond Ballet, Barksdale Theatre, VCU Brand Center, MBA Executive Fast Track, The Center for Corporate Education, and the daVinci Center for Design and Innovation. He is now in preproduction with the Richmond Symphony on two collaborative projects.

Along with Drs. Alan Anderson and Alan Dow, David founded the Clinical Communication Group. The CCG developed a program to address organizational and interpersonal communication within the business, legal, and healthcare industries. Their work has been featured in over 200 media outlets including National Public Radio, the Voice of America, The Washington Post, American Medical News, Surgery News, and the National Women’s Health Information Center. In 2008, CCG received the VCU School of Medicine Award for Educational Innovation.

David holds an MFA degree from UNC-G and a BA from the University of New Hampshire.

Prior to his appointment at VCU, David served on the faculty of the Drama Division at the Juilliard School, and was the resident movement coach and fight director for Lincoln Center Theatres and The Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival. David's university teaching also includes faculty positions at Brandeis University, Northern Kentucky University, University of Maryland, and the University of Montevallo where he has taught all levels of graduate and undergraduate acting, directing, movement and child drama in addition to conducting master classes for over two hundred fifty colleges and organizations in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Twenty-nine of his former students hold faculty appointments on university and college theatre-training programs throughout the United States. His former students have also played leads on Broadway and in regional theatres, TV, film, and voiceover.  They currently also hold the positions of artistic director of the Nashville and the Lexington Children’s Theatres.   

As a director, Leong has directed more than 60 productions including Shakespeare, musicals and children’s theatre for Imagination Stage, The Richmond Ballet, Georgia Shakespeare Festival, Champlain Shakespeare Festival, Adventure Theatre, Maryland Theatre for Children, Archaesus Productions and universities where he held faculty appointments. With an extensive background in children’s theatre, Leong’s seven plays have been professionally produced with Ghost Tales of the South, winning a national Theatre for Young Audiences national playwriting award.

As a movement coach and fight director, his work has been seen in many Broadway productions including Billy Elliot, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Carousel, The Rainmaker, Frank Wildhorn's musical The Civil War, King Hedley, Company, Picnic, Hamlet, Macbeth, Solitary Confinement, Sex and Longing, A Delicate Balance, The Homecoming, and In The Summer House. Feature films include Titus, and Alien Resurrection. London productions include the West End musical Napoleon, and the Olivier award-winning Jitney at the National Theatre of Great Britain. He has coached or choreographed numerous stars of TV, film and theatre including Val Kilmer, Christopher Plummer, Woody Harrelson, Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Spacey, Mary McDonnell, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, Raul Julia, Christopher Walken, Tom Hulce, Don Cheadle, Charles Dutton, and Harry Hamlin among others.

David currently holds the title of Certified Fight Master, a distinction held by only twelve other people in the United States. Regional theatre credits include Shakespeare Theatre, Arena Stage, American Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Denver Theatre Center, Alley Theatre, Goodman Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Long Wharf Theatre, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre, The Mark Taper Forum, the Guthrie Theatre, The Williamstown Theatre Festival and many more.

Stories on David's theatre work have been featured in The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Washingtonian, The Fight Master, Dramatics Magazine, PM Magazine, White's Guide to the Movies, and the NBC Today Show. His fights have been pictured on the cover of the magazines American Theatre, Theatre Profiles, Dramatics, and The Fight Master.

In his early career, David received numerous medals in NCAA gymnastic competition and taught acrobatics and physical comedy for Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey’s Clown College. He is the co-author of a The Complete Video Library of Unarmed Stage Combat published by First Light Video. He is now a writing a textbook Extreme Play! Special Skills for Actors and Directors.

Lorri Lindberg

Acting, Assistant Professor

jllindberg@vcu.edu

Lorri Lindberg teaches senior and graduate acting, and the acting for the camera performance classes. She has been a professional actress in film, television and theatre since 1986. A member of Screen Actors Guild, Lorri has has co-starred with Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Tess Harper, Tyne Daly, Sam Elliot, Jill Eikenberry, Bonnie Bedelia, Judith Light, Dudley Moore and Paul Riesner.

On stage, Lorri has played the leads in Lettuce and Lovage, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias, The Rainmaker, She Stoops To Conquer and many others. A Stanislavski and Meisner trained actress, Lorri received her BFA from the North Carolina School of the Arts and her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She was runner-up at the national American College Theatre Festival at the Kennedy Center. Lorri also has a great interest in the development of original playscripts. She is currently a member of the Healing Springs Playwright Retreat and has also worked with the Playwrights' Retreat in Staunton, Virginia.

Lorri is also very well known as a master acting teacher. She has guided and motivated hundreds of young actors for the past 19 years at UNC at Greensboro and the Savannah College of Art and Design. In the fall of 2003, Lorri directed Theatre VCU's Our Town. She has appeared in the April 2007 production of Cabaret and the February 2009 production of The Glass Menagerie. Lorri is also the Acting Coach for the Irene Ryan nominees for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (VCU Performance majors were National Winners in 2003) and the Director for the VCU Senior Showcases held in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and New York City.

Bonnie McCoy

Administrative Director

bsmccoy@vcu.edu

Bonnie McCoy comes to Theatre VCU from a theatrical design background, having had years of professional experience dealing with theatrical budgets.   Bonnie holds her MFA in Stage Design from Southern Methodist University and her BFA in Design and Technical Theatre from West Virginia University.   Bonnie has worked professionally in New York and regionally on a wide range of projects, including working as an associate costume designer for Toni-Leslie James.  Associate designer credits include 7 Broadway shows, including Ma Rainey's Black Bottom with Whoopi Goldberg and Charles Dutton, King Hedley II, with Brian Stokes Mitchell, Leslie Uggams, and Viola Davis, The Wild Party, with Toni Collette, Mandy Patinkin, and Eartha Kitt, and Marie Christine with Audra McDonald.  She has also worked for many Off-Broadway, regional and international theatre companies, dance, television, commercials, and film.  Theatre venues she has worked for either as an associate designer or designer include Lincoln Center Theater, New York Shakespeare Festival, Second Stage Theatre, Encores! Series at New York City Center, Ballet Hispanico, Ford’s Theatre Washington D.C., Hartford Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Queen Elizabeth II, The Shakespeare Theatre,  The Chichester Theater Festival, among others.  Selected assistant costume designer television credits include Whoopi starring Whoopi Goldberg, and Law and Order SVU. 

Kevin McGranahan

Scene Shop Foreman and Facilities Manager

kmcgranahan@vcu.edu

Kevin McGranahan is Scene Shop Foreman and Facilities Manager. Since 2006, Kevin has been working professionally in the entertainment industry, movies, television, radio, concerts, and theatre. Kevin has appeared locally as Patrick Henry at the historic St. John's reenactment of the famous "Give me liberty" speech, and stars as Patrick Henry in the 2007 production of the PBS /WCVE film Liberty or Death.

Robert Perry

Assistant Professor of Lighting Design

rperry4@vcu.edu

ROBERT PERRY has designed lighting for over 20 years with projects ranging from Off-Broadway to dance and opera. His designs has also been featured in numerous regional theatres across the country, including the Goodman Theatre, LaJolla Playhouse, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, California Shakespeare Festival, Triad Stage, the Shakespeare Theatre (Washington DC), the Intiman, Hartford Stage, Philadelphia Theatre Company, the McCarter Theatre and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.

Highlights of his career include designing the lighting for the World Premieres of Drowning Crow at the Goodman Theatre (Director Kate Whoriskey) and Crowns at the McCarter (Choreographer, Ronald K. Brown). In addition, Robert is credited with designing the lighting for the New York Premieres of Reefer Madness at the Variety Arts Theatre (Choreographer, Paula Abdul) and David Mamet’s Boston Marriage at New York’s Joseph Papp Public Theater.

Robert's vast repertoire of directors he has designed for include Des McAnuff, Joseph Chaikin, Michael Kahn, Seret Scott, Richard Hamburger, Regina Taylor, Shep Sobel, Pam MacKinnon, and Kate Whoriskey.

Awards include a Vivian Robinson AUDELCO Award for Best Lighting Design for the New York premiere of Crowns (2nd Stage), a Dean Goodman Choice Award for Best Lighting Design for The Skin of Our Teeth (California Shakespeare Festival), the Knoxville Area Theatre Coalitions Award for Best Lighting Design for Catfish Moon (Clarence Brown Theatre) and the Dallas-Fortworth Theater Critics Forum Award for Best Design Team for Inexpressible Island (Dallas Theater Center). Robert also has received several award nominations including: a Drama Desk Award nomination for David Mamet’s The Water Engine (Atlantic Theater Company) and a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for Love’s Labor’s Lost (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre).

For five years he was the Assistant Professor of Lighting Design at the University of Miami and Resident Lighting Designer for the Jerry Herman Ring Theatre.

In addition to his theatrical lighting career Robert is also a renowned lighting sculptor in which he creates sculptures that incorporate incandescent bulbs into 3-dimensional pieces made from recycled metals and found objects. To view his sculptural work please visit his website at www.structuresoflight.com. Robert also has a background in music performance having studied at the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts and Musicians’ Institute in Hollywood, California.

Mr. Perry received a Masters Degree of Fine Arts from Yale University’s Yale School of Drama and a BFA degree from the North Carolina School of the Arts. He is a member of United Scenic Artists Local #829. Examples of his theatrical work can be viewed at www.robertperrydesign.com.

Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates

Acting and Directing, Associate Professor

Janet B. Rodgers

Voice and Speech, Professor

jrodgers@vcu.edu

Janet Rodgers has been on VCU's Theatre faculty since 1987 during which time she has dialect/vocal coached over 100 shows, directed, acted and spent considerable time teaching and studying in Eastern Europe. Her book, The Complete Voice and Speech Workout, was published by Applause Books in 2001. She has been instrumental in creating and directing the Voice and Speech component of the MFA pedagogy program since 2005, and has been Head of Performance since 2007.

Theatre VCU's 2004 production of Mad Forest, directed by Ms. Rodgers, was selected as an entry in the 2004 Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Sibiu, Romania. In May of 2004, 22 Theatre VCU students traveled to Romania and performed in this production alongside Romanian students in the medieval fortress of Cisnidoara on a mountain-top in Transylvania. She also directed The Glass Menagerie in February of 2009.

From fall of 2004 through January of 2005, Ms. Rodgers was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu, Romania and at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Her current research has most recently taken her to Serbia, where she has worked with the DAH Theatre, employing theatre techniques of Grotowski and Eugenia Barba. Her Archetypes book, written with Frankie Armstrong on the subject of archetypes and performance was published in 2010. Artistic Director of The Fluxus Performance Group, their project, Inanna and the Healing Temple, was presented in May of 2007 at Art 6 Gallery in Richmond.

As Past President of the International Voice and Speech Training Association (VASTA), Ms Rodgers has also served on its board and been director of three conferences. Her article, "Spheres of Voice and Speech Training" appears in the 2007 VASTA monograph/journal.

Neno Russell

Costume Shop  Supervisor

nrussell@vcu.edu

Neno Russell is a professional patternmaker/draper and costume designer. He received a BS in Speech & Theatre from Middle Tennessee State University in 1991 and an MFA in Costume Technology from Florida State University in 1994. He was the Assistant Costume Shop Manager of the Williamstown Theatre Festival for the 1994 season and the Associate Costume Shop Master at the New York Public Theatre from 1996-1999. As a cutter/ draper for theatre, Neno has constructed costumes for New York's leading costume designers, Kathy Zuber, Jess Goldstein, Martin Paklidinaz, Ann Hould-Ward, Toni-Leslie James, Marina Draghici, Carrie Robbins and Paul Tazewell to name a few. For the commercial fashion industry for Wells Pattern Service in NY, he was the lead patternmaker for the fashion lines of Peter Som, Elijah, Baby Phat, Araks, Jockey Active Wear Collection and Bell by Alicia Bell.

Neno was the Associate Costume Designer on the 2009 Broadway revival of Finian's Rainbow, Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life and Footloose and constructed costumes for the Broadway productions of Bring in da' Noise Bring in da' Funk and The Rose Tattoo. He was also an assistant costume designer for 22 episodes of Whoopi on NBC. Neno has designed over 70 national commercials (including: MTV, VHI, Journeys, Thomasville, Petsmart, NFL Films, The History Channel and Old Navy) and designed 7 documentaries for the History Channel. Academically, he served an interim professor in the theatre department at Middle Tennessee State and was a 2007 Design Respondent for Region IV of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). Currently, Neno is designing and draping Amadeus for The Warehouse Theatre in Greenville SC and just completed his 8th year teaching costumes for The Tennessee Governor's School for the Arts. He is a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829.

Faculty Emeritus

Elizabeth Weiss Hopper - Head of the Costume Department

Richard Newdick - Performance