Current Students

Bethany Lynn Corey

Bethany Lynn Corey is a second year M.F.A. candidate at The University of Texas at Austin where much of her current research surrounds Theatre for the Very Young. Bethany's work in Theatre for the Very Young has led to the creation of the SPARK! Theatre. She has worked nationally and internationally as an actress, director and teaching artist. Previously Bethany has taught for U.S. Performing Arts Camp, Educational Theatre Company, Blue Igloo Playgroup, Gymboree Play and Music, Quest Arts for Everyone, Imagination Stage and was a team member/teaching artist for Imagination Quest, a arts integration program that runs residencies and teacher trainings. She holds a dual B.A. in Music and Theatre for Children and Public Communications from American University.  Currently Bethany is writing curriculum for the Paramount Theatre, working as a teaching artist for the Drama for Schools program, developing work in partnership with Trike Theatre and serves as the chair of The American Alliance for Theatre and Education's International Network.

Download Bethany's Curriculum Vitae (pdf – dowload adobe reader.)

Abra Chusid

Abra Chusid is in her third year of the MFA in DTYC, where she is working on her master's thesis, Toward Global Theatre for Young Audiences: Examining the potential of international TYA to create an intercultural consciousness amongst US American audiences.  Abra's interests in international TYA led her to last May's ASSITEJ Congress in Copenhagen and Malmoe, where she was honored to represent TYA/USA as one of the festival interns.  Currently, Abra is on the committee for the 2012 IPAY Showcase in Austin, contributing to student engagement and professional development opportunities. For the past two years, Abra has been working with playwright Gabriel Jason Dean on the development of The Transition of Doodle Pequeno, a new play challenging assumptions of identity and gender expression, which received the 2011 NETC Aurand Harris Award, and has been selected for this May's New Visions/New Voices.  Abra is also pursuing K-12 Theatre Teacher Certification.  Next semester she will student teach at Fossum Middle School, in McAllen, TX, just north of the Mexico border, and at Anderson High School in Austin.  Upon graduating, Abra looks forward to teaching middle and high school theatre, introducing both TYA and international theatre to her students and community.

Sarah Coleman

Sarah comes to UT from Washington, D.C. where she was working at Cultural Development Corporation (CuDC), a nonprofit organization that makes space for art. There, Sarah mentored and co-produced the work of emerging theatre and dance companies, coordinated peer-learning roundtables for arts administrators and consulted with small to mid-sized arts organizations on facilities planning and capacity building. In 2007, she helped revive the Source Festival and served as an Associate Producer through the 2009. Before her time at CuDC, Sarah worked in Arena Stage's education and stage management departments. She was a teaching artist in the D.C. Public Schools and a stage manager for Bosma Dance, Catalyst Theatre Company and Discovery Theatre.

Sarah's interest in the DTY program stems from her early involvement in professional theatre — she began stage managing at thirteen for Mad Horse Children's Theatre in her hometown of Portland, Maine. Sarah has a B.A. in history from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.

Lara Dossett

Lara Dossett is a teaching artist and scholar pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities at The University of Texas at Austin. Hailing originally from Chicago, Lara has worked with Steppenwolf, Northlight and Writers’ Theatres to develop theatre education programs, create curriculum and teach in-school residencies. Lara is a graduate of Illinois State University and studied in London with the English Touring Theatre. Currently Lara is engaged in explorations of drama-based instruction in public schools. Her goal is to empower every student to live more presently; to be active participants in their lives and their communities.

Emily Freeman

Emily Freeman is ecstatic to be a Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities M.F.A. candidate at The University of Texas. She received her B.A. in Theatre from Northwestern University where she studied creative drama, storytelling, and devising theatre with youth. Her honors thesis focused on directing a devised theatre piece with undergraduate students. Emily studied in London with New York University's Drama Education program. She worked at The John F. Kennedy for Performing Arts in the Development Department, and in Bethesda, Maryland as a teaching artist for Imagination Stage. Emily worked for Asolo Repertory Theatre's Education and Outreach Department in Sarasota, FL, where she co-directed documentary devised theatre projects and worked on Kaleidoscope, and program for adult actors with disabilities. While teaching at Orlando Repertory Theatre, she directed a program for children with disabilities, partnering with United Cerebral Palsy. Her love for working with and for young people has brought her to the University of Texas to further develop her skills as a practitioner and scholar. She's been a member of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education since 2007 and attends annual conferences to continue to inspire her work in the field.

Meg Greene

Meg Greene is excited to be a M.F.A. candidate in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities. She graduated from The Ohio State University, where she majored in Journalism and Theatre Performance. After graduation, she moved to Washington, DC to intern for Arena Stage in their education department and proceeded to work as a teaching artist and actor around the DC metropolitan area. With over five years of experience as a teaching artist, she has taught various topics in drama and creative writing to all ages. She has taught for Columbus Children's Theatre, Ohio State's Theatre Extension Program, Arena Stage, Young Playwrights’ Theater, Adventure Theatre, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop and Imagination Stage. At Imagination Stage, she specialized in early childhood classes in creative drama, for children aged 12 months-five years. Since beginning graduate school, she continues this work with the Spark! Theatre for the Very Young Ensemble. With Spark! she co-creates interactive storytelling performances for toddlers and their parents for the Austin Children’s Museum. Meg loves working with the very young because of their innate curiosity of the world. She is passionate about nurturing that curiosity to help children learn more about the world while creating learning experiences between parent and child.

Lindsay Hearn

Lindsay Hearn is thrilled to be an MFA Candidate in the Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities program at The University of Texas. She received her B.A. in Theatre and Psychology from Northwestern, where she restructured a summer arts program for her honors thesis. After graduation, she ran the Summer Arts for Youth Program with Young Audiences Indiana. She also spent a year apprenticing in the education department at Imagination Stage in Bethesda, Maryland, working as a teaching artist in youth theatre, drama classes, and arts integration programming. At UT, Lindsay’s work centers on defining youth success both in and outside of the classroom and integrating that definition into the school day, both as teacher and director.

Noah Martin

Noah comes to Austin from the beautiful and rainy Pacific Northwest, where he could be found teaching, making art, and bicycling in Portland, OR. He partnered with the Right Brain Initiative to bring arts integration projects into local public schools. These ranged from students writing and recording their own podcast about the life of rocks to theatre about bridges in conversation with one another. While working in Portland, Noah and a group of friends were inspired by the city's “do-it-yourself” mentality and put on a play in the garage. This production led to the establishment of the Working Theatre Collective. With the company, Noah devised and directed two original site-specific plays that had audiences following actors on bicycle.

Noah holds a Bachelor of Arts in Education from Western Washington University. His teaching philosophy and practice is largely inspired by his background in improvisational theatre and the work he did while interning and working with the Seattle Children's Theatre. He also has lived and worked as a teaching artist in the Bay Area with Performing Arts Workshop, California Shakespeare, and the Marsh Youth Theatre.

Anne McNamee

Anne McNamee holds a B.S. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities at the University of Texas at Austin. Immediately after finishing her undergrad, she worked with public and Charter schools on Chicago's West Side as a member of AmeriCorps Project YES!. She has since worked as an educator and teaching artist in such diverse settings as a summer program for children who have experienced the death of a parent at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre; an Easter Seals program for children with and without disabilities; UT's Living Newspaper Project; LEAP, an Austin-based leadership program for low-income adolescents; and Inside Out, a digital storytelling program for LGBTQ youth in Austin. Anne is also involved with Drama for Schools, UT's arts integration professional development program for teachers. Additionally, she maintains an ongoing position as a visiting teaching artist at NIRMAN, an education and arts NGO in Varanasi, India. Anne is interested in the potentials of drama and theatre as tools for education, dialogue, and social change.

Elizabeth Schildkret

Tina Ulrich

Tina Ulrich is an M.F.A. candidate in the Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities program. Tina holds a B.F.A. in Drama from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. While living in New York City, Tina worked as an actor, teaching artist and director for organizations including City Lights Youth Theatre, The Actor's Garage, Sunnyside Community Services, and the NYC Dept of Education. From 2007 – 2009, Tina taught and directed at Riverside Children's Theatre in Vero Beach, FL, where she worked with area elementary teachers to create an in-school drama program for grades PK-5. She also designed and implemented a series of early childhood drama and creative play classes for toddlers and their parents at the theater. In the summer of 2010, Tina was honored to present her research paper, “Using Drama to Encourage the Development of Play and Communication: Play as an Intervention Strategy for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder” at the AATE College/University/Research Debut panel.