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Richard Warner Sets His Site on New Directions

Richard Warner

Soon after his fall '86 arrival in the Department of Drama, Richard Warner assumed leadership of the MFA Program in Acting.  Since that time, under Richard's careful and committed guidance, the program has evolved into an elegantly designed actor-training program with a solid and coherent structure.  But now at this point in his career Richard is going to refocus his attention and energy upon undergraduate education and the cohort of undergraduate actors.

All of Richard's colleagues in the "building" are well aware of the countless number of hours he spends advising and mentoring undergraduate acting students, as well as giving of his time to direct any number of special projects or "thesis" performances with undergraduate students.  The high regard that undergraduate students have for him was most evident when a group of his former students, who now reside in Chicago and head-up the attention-grabbing Sideshow Theatre Company, invited him to be their artist-in-residence last winter/spring where he appeared in their production of Janet Burroway's Medea With Child.

Under Richard's leadership, the MFA Acting Program featured a number of curricular innovations.  One example is the MFA Thesis Project that combines a personal performance project with a film project documenting the process of creating the roles MFA students appeared in over the course of their residency. Personal performance projects often integrate filmed segments that, in turn, connect acting students to a medium that will become an important part of their professional lives.

Richard, as you pass program leadership on to our incoming colleague Colleen Kelly, we are indebted to you for all of your great and small contributions to the health of the MFA Program as teacher - mentor - administrator.

- Tom Bloom

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