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Colleen Kelly Returns to Head MFA Acting Program

Colleen Kelly

Colleen Kelly has accepted an appointment as the department's Acting Director of the Graduate Acting Program/Visiting Professor of Acting for the 2011-2012 academic year. Colleen, a past Associate Professor of Drama at UVa, recently directed The Imaginary Invalid and The Two Gentlemen of Verona for the department.  Colleen also will continue to serve as the Director of Training at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA.  For the ASC, Colleen directed Julius Caesar (2006/2007),co-directed The Taming of the Shrew (2002/2003), and performed in the 2010 Actors’ Renaissance Season. In addition to teaching at UVa, Colleen serves on the graduate faculty of Mary Baldwin College’s MLitt/MFA in Shakespeare and Renaissance Performance; she also taught at the University of San Diego/Old Globe Theatre and served as head of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s MFA/Professional Actor Training Program. Colleen is a member of Actor’s Equity, a Founding Board Member of the Association of Theatre Movement Educators, and a Past-vice president of the Society of American Fight Directors. She has worked at professional theatres such as the American Shakespeare Center, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, the Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Clarence Brown Theatre, and Heritage Repertory Theatre in capacities of actor, director, fight director, and dance choreographer.

Colleen remarks that returning to the Department of Drama to direct The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Imaginary Invalid sparked wonderful memories (such as talking with Richard Warner about “the work”) as well as curious observations (such as noticing the stairwell between the first and second floor smells exactly the same as it did twelve years ago). She went on to say that "I appreciated the opportunity to reconnect with past colleagues as well as meet and work with new department faculty. Couple that with the positive impression the undergraduate and graduate students had on me…well, I didn’t have to think long about accepting an invitation to spend more time in the department. 
In the same year that U.Va. welcomes a new University President and breaks ground for the Ruth Caplin Theatre I am honored to participate in recruiting a new class of graduate actors for the UVa Drama Department."

Welcome Colleen!  The Department looks forward to reconnecting with you in other familiar places - besides that stairway between the first and second floors!

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