Theatre

Dean Adams is presently a Professor in the Department of Theatre and Senior Associate Dean of Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  From 1989 to 2011, he was the Founding Artistic Director of the Connecticut Theater Festival in Simsbury, Connecticut. As a producer and director, Dean has presented or co-produced productions with […]

Since 1982, Professor Bruce Auerbach has created stage designs for over 200 regional theatre and university productions for both theatre and dance. Though a versatile designer with broad interests, he’s often drawn to productions that evoke strong displays of emotion – the works of Williams, Miller, and Ibsen, for example. He’s particularly interested in designing […]

Christina Beam is the Costume Lab Manager at UNC Charlotte. Christina holds an MFA in Costume Design from UMass Amherst, having completed an assistantship that included rigorous work in costume construction. She also works as a freelance Costume Designer, having designed productions for Shakespeare & Company (Lenox, MA), Chester Theatre Company (Chester, MA), The Hartt […]

Jessica Bilgrad holds a BA in communications and sociology from Georgia State University and an MA in theatre with a concentration in drama therapy from Kansas State University. During her three years in Kansas, Bilgrad studied and honed her craft to incorporate the intersection of wellness and creativity through directing, playwriting, sociodrama, playback theatre, creative […]

Jill earned three degrees: B.F.A. from Kent State University, M.A. from Bowling Green State University, and M.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University.  She began her work at UNC Charlotte way back in 1985. After 4 years of teaching acting and voice, Jill moved over to The Children’s Theatre of Charlotte where she spent 17 years teaching, acting, and directing […]

Tom Burch is the Associate Professor of Scenic Design. Before joining UNC Charlotte in the fall of 2014, he taught at Ithaca College (NY) and for several years in the Theatre and Performance Studies Program at the University of Chicago, as well as working as a freelance scenic designer based in Chicago. He holds a BFA […]

Meena Carr is the Assistant Technical Director for the Production Arts + Operations unit. Meena has worked in various theaters, including University of Arizona Theater department (degree-seeking carpenter/ welder), University of Arizona Opera department (Assistant Technical Director), Moonlight Amphitheatre (Vista, CA), and Santa Fe Opera (Santa Fe, NM). After graduating with a BFA from The […]

Rob Conkie (he/him), Robinson Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare Studies, integrates practical and theoretical approaches to the teaching and research of Shakespeare in performance. He is the author of Writing Performative Shakespeares: New Forms for Performance Criticism (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and The Globe Theatre Project: Shakespeare and Authenticity (Edwin Mellen Press, 2006), and the editor (with Scott Maisano) of Shakespeare […]

Lynne Conner is a playwright, cultural historian, and cultural policy theorist. Her publications include the books Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts (co-editor; 2022), Audience Engagement and the Role of Arts Talk in the Digital Era (Palgrave Macmillan 2013), Pittsburgh in Stages: Two Hundred Years of Theater (University of Pittsburgh Press 2007), In the Garden of Live Flowers, co-authored with […]