John Frick, Professor, Theatre History and Dramatic Literature
jwf8f@virginia.edu
John Frick this summer presided over the meetings and activities of the American Theatre and Drama Society, of which he is President, at the annual ATHE convention in Denver.  He also presented a paper, "'A Play to Which No Apologist for Slavery Could Object:' Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the American Stage," at the conference.  This past Spring, Frick delivered a series of lectures on Uncle Tom’s Cabin at the University of Iowa and next May, he will deliver a keynote address titled "Whose Culture is it Anyway ?: Uncle Tom's Cabin, the Violence of Representation, and the Appropriation of Race on the Antebellum American Stage" at the International Conference on American Theatre and Drama to be held in Cadiz, Spain.  This August, Frick's book Theatre, Culture and Temperance Reform in Nineteenth-century America, a 2004 winner of a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles award, was re-issued in paperback by the Cambridge University Press and articles he has written were recently published in What Should I Read Next (Virginia University Press, 2008).

Marcy Linton, Assistant Professor, Costume Technologist
mjl2f@virginia.edu
Marcy worked at the Utah Shakespeare Festival this summer in Cedar City as a draper for the designer Bill Black on The Two Gentlemen of Verona. She is also wrapping up a project with Animal Planet this Fall where she is designing production samples and patterns of children’s costumes that will be produced to sell.  The four costumes she is working on are a snowshoe hare, walrus, rescue dog and penguin.

R. Lee Kennedy, Associate Professor, Lighting Design
rlk3p@virginia.edu
Over the summer, R. Lee Kennedy served as Festival Lighting Designer for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival where he designed productions of Taming of the Shrew, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged and Titus Andronicus. He is currently designing the lighting for productions of Bury the Dead with Director Joe Calarco for Transport Group; 70 Scenes of Halloween for JMU School of Theatre; and Dracula for Purdue Theatre.

Michael Rasbury, Assistant Professor, Sound Design
mr2xk@virginia.edu
Michael Rasbury was granted Sesquicentennial Research release time during the spring of 2008 to explore the project titled:  Phonography (Field Recording) utilizing Binaural Recording.  The result of this research is a free Internet based, “phonographic” resource to sound designers and enthusiasts called earthrecordings.com. A primary goal of this endeavor has been the exploration of HRTF sound recording.  During this release time, Michael also traveled to Switzerland in order to complete a multi-track recording of an American/Swiss blues band on tour there.  Upon returning to the States, he served as sound designer for the Lost Colony Outdoor Drama in Manteo, North Carolina.  During the month of June, Michael provided sound design and music composition for Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s production of Macbeth.  From there, he traveled to the Eugene O’Neill National Music Theatre Conference in Waterford, Connecticut, to present his new musical script Max Understood, written with co-writer Nancy Carlin.  During the month of August, Michael spent time installing a new theatre technology classroom in the Culbreth Building using funds obtained from the Arts Council’s Annual Fund and Equipment Transfer Funds.  During this semester, he will provide sound design for the Department’s first production, Some Girl(s), and then travel to New York City as sound designer for a new adaptation of Bury The Dead, produced by the acclaimed Transport Group. The Mead Endowment has recently named Michael as an honored faculty.  The Mead Endowment group has provided financial support for his proposed student led research project based on converting physical objects into representative sounds or music.

Betsy Rudelich Tucker, Assistant Professor, Acting and Directing
art9y@virginia.edu
Betsy spent May and some of June opening and closing The Beard of Avon at Live Arts.  It was a terrific cast, show, set, costumes and audience experience. July in England and France; theatre in London, walking the Cornish coast, the Avignon Theatre Festival.  And Maine. August: swimming. Fall: teaching both Graduate and Undergraduate Script Analysis and having a good time, as always.  Only four students in Acting II, we're making an ensemble. And a First Year one credit seminar on Theatre and Science, with four plays on the same...in preparation for The Love Song of J.Robert Oppenheimer in the spring.  Recruiting courses to read and see Oppenheimer from across campus and have so far secured two large ethics courses.  And planning 491 for the Spring, with a grant from the Academic and Community Engagement initiative. We'll do nine weeks of workshops in two juvenile correctional facilities this Spring.  What will we do?  I said planning.

A Digital Archive: “The Circus in America, 1793 to 1940”
LaVahn Hoh, Professor, Head of Production
lgh2b@virginia.edu
Bio

Research in Sound Design and Electronic Composition
Michael Rasbury, Assistant Professor, Sound Design
mr2xk@virginia.edu
Bio