Graduate Students

Sampada Aranke (saranke@ucdavis.edu) believes in performance as a site of resistance, and is working to further movement building and community organizing.

Sylvie Bissonnette(sbissonnette@ucdavis.edu)

Dylan Bolles (dsbolles@ucdavis.edu) is a composer, performer and instrument builder who creates sound-based theatre for people and environments.

Hilary Bryan (hjbryan@ucdavis.edu) is a dancer/singer/choreographer presenting in theatre and outdoor events worldwide, and is fascinated by sacred geometry and the inner workings of the human form.

Claire Chambers-Blackstock (cmcblackstock@ucdavis.edu) investigates intersections between theology/theatricality, liturgy/the language of performance, spirituality/performance practice, and ritual/reality.

Stephanie Cooper(coop@ucdavis.edu)

Elizabeth Galindo (epgalindo@ucdavis.edu) is a couture and costume designer researching authenticity in costuming for
historical films, and the artisans who create the pieces.

Elizabeth Gilbride (esgilbride@ucdavis.edu) is a dancer and actor, who has worked in arts management and is focusing on theatre development and arts policy.

Keith Hennessy (jhennessy@ucdavis.edu) improvises in the swampy, fertile borderlands of performance, ritual, theory,
history and action.

Zelma R. Long has been in the Winemaking profession for many years. She is interested in developing a new area of expertise and will be working on a Ph.D. in Performance Studies.

Christopher McCoy(cmccoy@ucdavis.edu) has worked as a teaching artist for Seattle Children's Theatre, Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, the Denver Center Theatre Company, and, most recently, for the Citi Wang Theatre in Boston. In 2001, Chris was selected for an education fellowship through OPERA America, through which he worked with St. Louis Opera Theatre, San Diego Opera, and Austin Lyric Opera. Directing credits include Pterodactyls by Nicky Silver, Long Christmas Ride Home by Paula Vogel, A Number by Caryl Churchill, Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel, among others.

Kara Miller(karmiller@ucdavis.edu)

Jorge Luis Morejon(jlmorejon@ucdavis.edu) is an actor/singer/ dancer/educator researching the integration of displaced communities through the practice of art rituals.

Nita Little Nelson (nlnel@ucdavis.edu) is a founding developer of Contact Improvisation, and a dance artist investigating modalities of the embodied mind in composition and performance.

Ilya Noe is an incoming PhD student from Visual Arts, who is working on process and site-specificity.

Monica Praba Pilar (mppilar@ucdavis.edu) is a performance artist, technologist and cultural theorist exploring the intersections of feminism and emerging technologies.

Sharon Pressburg

Elizabeth M Stephens is an eco-sexual artist who explores love as art. Currently her practice is based in collaborative performance art which sometimes includes interventionist practices, social sculpture, video, and teaching.

Nitza Tenenblat(ntenenblat@ucdavis.edu

Candice Andrews (cmandrews@ucdavis.edu) comes to UC Davis with a double BA degree in Theatre/Speech Communication from Colorado State University. She has worked as a traveling drama director and speech and drama teacher . In 2003 Andrews received a grant to teach in 13 countries. These included the poorest neighborhoods in India, Cuba & Africa, as well as futuristic institutes and theatres in Japan and Hong Kong. Andrews introduced drama curriculum into many schools while touring and researching the infrastructure of theatres that had moved from rags to riches. Andrews has directed at the Rialto Theater for C.A.S.T. (Creative Arts for Students of Theatre) and the Roberta Price Civic Auditorium in Loveland, Colorado. She has worked at Colorado State University’s Summer Theatre, Lincoln Center and Open Stage Theatre Company in Fort Collins, Colorado. Andrews hopes to continue her travels and research as a Professional Director and Professor in Speech and Drama.

Frank Ata-Baah (fatabaah@ucdavis.edu)

Kara Lynn Branch (klbranch@ucdavis.edu)

Amy Louise Cole (amycole@ucdavis.edu) is a MFA candidate in Acting at UC Davis and has been performing professionally in the Bay Area for the past decade. She is Co-founder and Executive Director of El Gato Theatre in San Francisco (www. elgatotheatre.org) and for the past two years has brought her love of theatre to classrooms throughout the Bay Area as a professional teaching artist. Amy is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and Theatre Bay Area.

Kelly Jean Conard (kjconard@ucdavis.edu)

Jess Alan Curtis (jescurtis@ucdavis.edu) living and working in San Francisco and Berlin, has created a body of work ranging from the underground extremes of Mission District Warehouses with Contraband (1985-1994) to the formal refinement of European State Theaters with Jess Curtis/Gravity (2000-present). Along the way he has co-created ground breaking circus works with the Franco-American Circus project Cie Cahin Caha, Cirque Batard; and has been commissioned to create works for companies such as FabrikCompanie in Germany, the English Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company, ContactArt in Italy, and Croi Glan Integrated Dance Company in Ireland. He founded Jess Curtis/Gravity in 2000 as a research and development vehicle for very live performance. At Gravity, he has created four full-evening performance works: No Place Like Home (2000), fallen (2001), Touched: Symptoms of Being Human (2005), Under the Radar (2007), and a variety of smaller repertory works and site specific installations. Mr. Curtis’ work has received awards and support from (among others) the NEA, Germany’s Hauptstadtkulturfonds, the San Francisco Arts Commission, SF’s Grants for the Arts, and the Creative Work Fund (2007). Gravity’s work has received six Izzies (Isadora Duncan Dance Awards). In 2002 he received a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for “fallen.” He is currently working toward an MFA in Choreography at UC Davis and has taught as a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley and the University of the Arts in Berlin. More information: www.jesscurtisgravity.org.

Michael Davison (mdavison@ucdavis.edu) is a MFA Acting candidate and founder/artistic director of San Francisco StageWorks. He is an actor/director/educator foremost, but has also had success as a playwright and composer. With theatrical roots in Washington D.C. and Dallas, he has called the SF Bay Area his home for the last ten years or more and has been on stage or behind the scenes in productions with A.C.T., CalShakes, Theatre Rhinoceros, SF StageWorks, SFLyric Opera, and others. More info at michaeldavison.com.

Brett Arthur Duggan (baduggan@ucdavis.edu) is an actor, musician, stand-up comedian/performance artist. He did his undergraduate work at Emerson College. He has been on stage in New York, Boston, San Francisco and many points in between. See him also in UCD’s Oklahoma! this spring. Find out more at Brettduggan.com.

Nina Galin (ngalin@ucdavis.edu) has been developing works that integrate theatre, dance, and both classical and contemporary music, since 1987. From alternative venues in New York City to the converted warehouses of San Francisco's Mission District, to the formica tabletops of southern California Starbucks stores, Galin blurs boundaries between audience and performer, and incorporates explicit awareness of place into each performance. As an artist, educator and citizen, she explores connection and complexity on somatic, aesthetic, social, political, and economic levels of experience. A broad concept of musicality underlies Nina Galin's approach to performance. She is currently pursuing her MFA at UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance.

Glen Fox (gfox@ucdavis.edu)

Karl Frost (kjfrost@ucdavis.edu) has been practicing, performing, and teaching contact improvisation and interdisciplinary, dance-based performance since the mid 80's. His work is very somatic-psychological in nature and he frequently experiments with direct audience/performer interaction and performers as facilitators of experience. www.bodyresearch.org

The voices in his head all agree that Barry Scott Hubbard (bshubbard@ucdavis.edu) is a marvelous actor. Barry has received some validation for this belief by being hired to work at various theatres; although his hiring has almost always been the result of a casting mistake made by the director. Even though he has often been the unintentional benefactor of some other actor's misfortune, Barry has nonetheless enjoyed doing classical, contemporary, and some improv theatre at Southern Repertory Theatre, Teatro Wego, and the Shakespeare Festival at Tulane in New Orleans, and at the Sacramento Theatre Company and the Marin Shakespeare Company in northern Calfornia. Barry has a BFA in Acting from UC Santa Barbara.

Sarah Elizabeth Kendrick (sekendrick@ucdavis.edu) is a 2nd year MFA candidate in costume design who hails from Washington, DC where she worked as a contractor for the Department of Defense while pursuing her theatrical endeavors in the evenings. Credits include 'The Women' at The Greenbelt Arts Center (Greenbelt, MD); 'The Philadelphia Story', 'Arsenic and Old Lace', and 'And Then There Were None' at Laurel Mill Playhouse (Laurel, MD); 'The Importance of Being Earnest' at Prince George's Little Theatre; and 'All Shook Up' at Annapolis Summer Gardens. Last year at UC Davis she costumed 'Among The Institutions' and "Symmetry Study #15', both part of the Main Stage Dance Theatre Showcase; and 'Private Eyes'. This past summer she worked as the Rentals Coordinator at Music Circus in sacramento This year she will work with fall Granada artists Sara Shelton Mann and Guillermo Gómez-Peña on thier new works. She will also be costuming the winter production of Anton Checkov's 'The Seagull' directed by Granada artist Katya Kamotskaia.

Jamie Erin Kumpf (jekumpf@ucdavis.edu) previously designed The Angry Red Drum at UC Davis. Her other scenic design credits include The Emperor’s New Clothes at B-Street Theater and The Trial of One Short Sighted Woman vs. Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae for the San Jose Multicultural Artists Guild. She has also acted as the scenic charge artist for the last three years at the Sacramento Music Circus.

Brian Matthew Livingston ( blivingston@ucdavis.edu)

James Franklin Marchbanks (Jmarchbanks@ucdavis.edu) is a first-year MFA candidate in Acting. Previous feature film work includes Damaged by Default at Sonoma State's Communications Department under Professor M. Litle

Jacob William Nelson (jwnnelson@ucdavis.edu) designs include: The Winter’s Tale at UC Davis, 3 More Sleepless Nights and Al Takes a Bride at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. He has served as Master Electrician and Lighting Designer on various other Muhlenberg College productions along with recently designing the lights for Oklahoma! for the Pennsylvania Playhouse in Bethlehem, PA.

Anne Reeder (areeder@ucdavis.edu) is a second year MFA Acting candidate at UC Davis. Anne received her B.A. in Theater Studies with concentrations in Acting and Dance from Emerson College in 2004. After graduating she moved to Los Angeles where she pursued a professional career in Acting and Production. Some credits include: Brotherhood (Showtime), The Bold and the Beautiful (CBS), and The Art of Being Straight (Great Graffiti Films). Most recently Anne was seen in Granada-Artist-In-Residence John Jasperse’s work Beyond Belief and in Private Eyes at UC Davis last season. Anne is thankful to be working and studying with the talented people at UC Davis.

Avila Reese (areese@ucdavis.edu)

Gian Christian Scarabino(gcscarabino@ucdavis.edu

Joshua Steadman (jsteadman@ucdavis.edu) is in his second year of the MFA Scenic Design program. Previous to grad school he worked as a freelance illustrator and theme park designer. Past clients include: Thinkwell Design, Kirk Design, Jared Gold and The Black Chandelier, SLUG Magazine, and Mozaic Media. He is planning to continue his career after grad school in T.V. and film.

John Zibell (jzibell@ucdavis.edu) is a theatre director, actor and award-winning filmmaker. He trained in New York at Mike Nichols’ New Actor’s Workshop, has acted in regional theater and Off-Broadway and has directed classical and contemporary, naturalism and avant garde. John has also taught acting to young people as well as professional actors and served as the acting coach on the controversial independent film The War Within. His feature film, Sex and Violence, which he also wrote, won the Audience Award and earned him the Best Directorial Debut Award at the New York International Independent Film Festival.