Coleman A. Jennings

Professor Jennings has both his B.F.A. and M.F.A. from UT and his doctorate from New York University. He served as chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance for twelve years and has directed over twenty productions at UT as well as productions in Texas and Illinois. He is the author of the children's play, "The Honorable Urashima Taro" and co-author with his wife, Lola, "The Early Life of Louis Braille" and "Johnny Tremain." He is the editor of seven anthologies of plays for children, the most recent being: Theatre for Children: Fifteen Classic Plays-Foreword by Peter Brosius. Professor Jennings holds a Jesse H. Jones Professorship and teaches classes in the Drama & Theatre for Youth Area which, in 1991, received the national Sara Spencer Award for the excellence of the program. In 1986 he received a Texas Educational Theatre Association Founder's Award, in 1993 was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in 1995 was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Children's Theatre Foundation of America. In April 2004, the Department of Theatre and Dance produced "The Honorable Urashima Taro" during a children's theatre symposium held at the university in honor of his 40th year on the faculty, which was attended by children's theatre experts from around the nation.