Graduate Program in Theatre - MFA

Elizabeth Asselstine, Chair | eaa@yorku.ca
BA Guelph, MA UC Santa Barbara
Associate Professor: Lighting

Chair, Department of Theatre

Professor Asselstine has been working as a lighting designer for the past 25 years. Prior to joining the full-time faculty at York, she was resident lighting designer at the Canadian Opera Company for 12 years, including touring with COC productions to Melbourne, Australia, Hong Kong and Edinburgh, Scotland. Other design credits include Baltimore Opera and major Canadian companies from coast to coast, including Pacific Opera, Victoria; Centaur Theatre, Montreal; Globe Theatre, Regina; Charlottetown Festival, PEI; National Arts Centre, Ottawa; Canadian Stage, Toronto; Shaw Festival; and Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Professor Asselstine’s current research interests focus on sustainability in the arts.  She is a member of Associated Designers of Canada and Canadian Institute of Theatre Technicians and is the Canadian Commissioner of Scenography for OISTAT.

Eric Armstrong | earmstro@yorku.ca

Director of the Graduate Program in Theatre (MFA)
BFA Concordia, MFA York

Associate Professor: Voice

Eric Armstrong is a dialogue/dialect coach for film and theatre and has worked as an actor on stage and screen across Canada. His training includes studies at The Drama Studio London, and an apprenticeship with Andrew Wade, head of voice at Royal  Shakespeare Company. Professional dialect coaching highlights include Habeas Corpus at Canadian Stage, Translations at Soulpepper and Just Stopped by to See the Man at Steppenwolf Theatre; coaching Michelle Williams and Sarah Silverman on Sarah Polley's Take this Waltz; and coaching Tom Wilkinson for his Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated performance in Normal.

Professor Armstrong teaches voice, speech, dialects and Shakespearean text to students in the BFA and MFA acting programs at York. Previous teaching appointments include Roosevelt University, Chicago; Brandeis University, Boston; and the University of Windsor.

Professor Armstrong's workbook Introducing the IPA is used in theatre training programs across Canada, the US and New Zealand. He blogs on voice use for the actor at voiceguy.ca, and with Phil Thompson from UC Irvine runs Glossonomia, a podcast on speech sounds. A former director and board member of the Voice and Speech Trainiers Association (VASTA), he has published frequently in the Voice and Speech Review and has presented at VASTA conferences in New York, Ashland (Oregon), Denver, Chicago, Washington DC, San Antonio (Texas) and Glasgow, Scotland. His research and creative interests lie at the intersection of teaching and technology, and he makes extensive use of web-based technologies to support his teaching and research.

Erika Batdorf | ebatdorf@yorku.ca

BSc Lesley College

Associate Professor: Movement

Erika Batdorf has been creating, directing, choreographing and performing original theatrical work since 1983. Her productions have been seen across North America and internationally, including venues such as the Smithsonian Institution; The Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco; Landegg Academy for International Development, Switzerland; Nine Dragon Heads International Arts Symposium, Korea; Harvard University; the National and International Movement Theatre Festivals in New York City, Philadelphia and New Hampshire; the Women’s Theater Festival in Philadelphia; Boston Center for the Arts; and in NYC for PS122, Dixon Place, Moonworks and the NY International Fringe Festival. She has also performed for United Nations conferences in Switzerland and Denmark and the International Women’s Playwrights Conference in Indonesia. In Toronto, she has presented her works at Theatre Passe Muraille, The Theatre Centre, Factory Theatre, and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in the Hysteria and Rhubarb! festivals. She is a four-time Dora Award nominee: for performance, directing and twice for playwriting.

In 2010 Professor Batdorf directed two new productions: an adaptation of Peer Gynt  as a two-hander starring Susan Coyne and Matthew Romantini for the Thistle Project, and One Pure Longing: Táhirih’s Search, an interdisciplinary work inspired by the 19th century Persian poetess, presented by Toronto’s Luminato Festival. She also was invited for a work exchange with The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards and was a featured solo performer for the KO Festival in Massachusetts.

Erika Batdorf founded the Batdorf School for Movement Theatre in Boston in 1998 and has been a guest artist in universities and theatres internationally. Prior to joining the faculty in York's Theatre Department, she taught at the Boston Conservatory, Brandeis University, Emerson College and the University of Alaska Anchorage. For the past two years, alongside her work at York, she has given acting classes for the opera intensive offered by Queen of Puddings in Toronto. She received the Faculty of  Fine Arts Dean's Teaching Award at York in 2010.

Ines Buchli | ibuchli@yorku.ca
BFA Simon Fraser, MFA York
Associate Professor: Acting and Directing

Professor Buchli is a theatre director, dramaturg, filmmaker and writer. Former associate artistic director of Necessary Angel Theatre and associate artist with Theatre Direct, she has more than 25 years of experience in theatre directing, dramaturgy and collective creation. Her directing credits include the Shaw Festival, Theatre Passe Muraille and Necessary Angel. With Theatre @ York, her directing credits include the Canadian premiere of Big Love and the North American premiere of Comedy of Vanity.

In addition to her training and experience in theatre, Ines Buchli is a graduate of the directing lab at the Canadian Film Centre. Her films Exposure, Ministry and Keeper have been seen nationally on CBC-TV and at international film festivals. Her award-winning short, Foxy Lady, Wild Cherry, premiered at the Toronto Internatinal Film Festival and has screened at more than 20 festivals worldwide, as well as on Showcase, W, Sundance Channel, PBS and HBO. Toronto film critic Cameron Bailey named Foxy Lady, Wild Cherry as one of his top ten picks and presented it in Sao Paulo as part of a program of his favourite Canadian short films. Currently, Professor Buchli is actively developing her first feature, Skin to Skin, as writer and director with BC Film and Movie Central.

Gwen Dobie | gdobie@yorku.ca
BA Windsor, Graduate Diploma - Centro Italiano Tecnica Alexander
Associate Professor: Movement for actors; ensemble creation

Gwen Dobie is a founder and co-artistic director of Out of the Box Productions. The company's inaugural production, Opera Erotique, opened in Victoria in 2004, toured BC's west coast and was remounted in Toronto in 2010. She produced and directed In the Wings for the Sidney Summer Theatre Festival; The Third Taboo, which toured western Canada in 2006; Prior Engagement at Belfry Studio Theatre; and Sound in Silence which premiered in Victoria, BC in 2008 and at the Theatre Centre in Toronto in 2009. Other directing credits include the Canadian premiere of the Danish opera On this Planet by Anders Nordendoft and the world premiere of the Christopher Donison's opera Eyes on the Mountain . From 1998 to 2003, Professor Dobie was the stage director and manager of Opera Studio at the Victoria Conservatory of Music. Working in collaboration with Selena James and Robert Holliston, she created and directed original works for the company including Opera X Posed, Ay, Amore and Romeo and Juliet.

Professor Dobie has trained in numerous movement styles including classical dance, modern, tap, baroque, Renaissance, ballroom dance, authentic movement, and the Alexander Technique. She has taught movement for actors and opera singers at the University of Victoria Theatre Department, Victoria Conservatory of Music, Banff Centre for the Arts and the Victoria Motion Picture School, and was a movement coach and choreographer at the Banff Centre for the Opera as Theatre program in 2003 and 2004. At York, she serves as movement coach and choreographer for the Department of Theatre's company, Theatre @ York (Metamorphoses, Bewitched, Marat./Sade). She recently choreographed Pride and Prejudice for London's Grand Theatre. Upcoming projects include directing and producing an original work, Plague Dance, for Out of the Box Productions.

Robert Fothergill | robf@yorku.ca
BA Cambridge, MA, PhilM, PhD Toronto
Associate Professor: Dramatic literature

Professor Fothergill was a long-time member of the faculty of York University's Atkinson College English Department, specializing in dramatic literature, before transferring into the Department of Theatre in the Faculty of Fine Arts in 1994. In addition to teaching, he has been a filmmaker, film critic and playwright. His plays include Detaining Mr. Trotsky (Canadian Stage Company 1987, Chalmers Award and Dora nominations); Public Lies (Tarragon Theatre 1993, Chalmers and Dora nominations); The Dershowitz Protocol (Toronto Summerworks Festival 2003, New York Fringe 2008 and Theater Bonn, in German translation, 2008); Borderline (Summerworks 2004, CBC Radio 2005); Disciples (Summerworks 2007); and Holding the Line (public reading at Theatre Passe Muraille 2008). Dr. Fothergill has visited India three times in recent years to guest-direct Canadian plays with students at the Universities of Baroda and Jaipur.

Michael Greyeyes | greyeyes@yorku.ca

MFA Kent State

Associate Professor: Movement for actors; ensemble creation

Professor Greyeyes began his professional career as a classical dancer with The National Ballet of Canada and with the company of Eliot Feld in New York City.  Since 1993, he has been choreographing and directing his own work for stages and festivals across Canada and Europe. Recent credits include the The Threshing Floor (2008) a duet he co-choreographed with Santee Smith and toured across Canada, and directing and choreographing the premiere of the opera Pimooteewin (The Journey) composed by Melissa Hui and written by Tomson Highway, for Soundstreams Canada (2008).  This work - the first opera written in the Cree language - continues to tour in Ontario and Quebec through 2011. He directed Daniel David Moses’ play Almighty Voice and His Wife at Theatre Passe Muraille for Native Earth Performing Arts (2009).  The production was invited to the inaugural Origins theatre festival for First Nations in London, England the same year.

As an actor, Michael Greyeyes has appeared on stage at Grand Theatre, Theatre Aquarius and Porthouse Theatre, and in numerous film and television productions including Skinwalkers (PBS), Smoke Signals (Miramax), Passchendaele (Alliance) and in the title role in Ric Burn’s 2009 PBS documentary/live action film Tecumseh’s Vision.  He presented his performance piece Gone Indian, created in collaboration with visual artist Rebecca Belmore, at Toronto's Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2009. Other screen credits include Triptych (2007), a short file he wrote and choreographed, which aired nationally on Bravo! and the dance short Seven Seconds, which premiered at Toronto's imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in 2010. Professor Greyeyes is currently developing a new site-specific project for Nakai Theatre in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Melee Hutton

Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

MFA & Graduate Diploma in Teaching Acting, York

Melee Hutton is the artistic director of Toronto's KICK theatre. Her production of Tara Beagan’s Miss Julie: Sheh’mah was nominated for five Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2009. The same year, she directed a critically acclaimed production of Plautus’ The Menachmus Twins for The Stone Circle Project.

As an actor, Melee Hutton has worked extensively in theatre in both the UK and Canada. She won the London New Play Festival Best Actress Award in 1990 for her work in the title role in Wendy Hammond’s play Julie Johnson. Canadian performance credits include Shakuntala (Pleiades Theatre, World Stage), The Miser and Blithe Spirit (Sudbury Theatre Centre), The Seagull (Wordsmith Theatre), Bluebeard (Toronto Fringe), Pericles (Festival of Classics) and The Doll House (DVxT). In the UK, she originated the role of Farrah Delamitri in Ben Elton’s Laurence Olivier Award-winning Popcorn (Apollo Theatre) and played Mary in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Olivier Award-winning Our Country’s Good (Royal Court Theatre) in London's West End. Other UK credits include Disappeared, Weldon Rising, Gibraltar Straight (Royal Court Theatre); Twelfth Night (Cumbernauld Theatre); Macbeth (New Vic Theatre); Juno and the Paycock and ON (Royal National Theatre of Great Britain). Recent film and television appearances include Love and Savagery, Beautiful People, Flashpoint and PSI Factor as well as extensive work in British television and radio.

Shawn Kerwin | shawn@yorku.ca

Associate Professor: Stage design

Shawn Kerwin studied theatre design at the Sadlers Wells School under Motley in London, England; drawing and painting in New York at the New Brooklyn School, Arts Students' League and New York Academy of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture; and assisted/apprenticed at various theatres in England and at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

In a professional career spanning more than 30 years, Professor Kerwin has designed sets and costumes for leading companies across Canada, in the US and England. Her credits include Mirvish Productions, the National Arts Centre, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Soulpepper, Citadel Theatre, Theatre New Brunswick, Neptune Theatre, Factory Theatre, Canadian Stage, Young Vic Theatre, Pacific Opera and the Blyth Festival (where she is an associate artist), among others. She also designed more than 250 windows for Tiffany & Co.’s flagship store in Toronto.

Professor Kerwin is the recipient of two Dora Awards for outstanding design and a seven-time nominee. She has also been nominated for the prestigious Siminovitch Award. Other honours include the Harold Award (Toronto), Tom Patterson Award (Stratford) and four Canada Council awards. She is a member of Associated Designers of Canada, and currently serves on the board of directors at Toronto's Factory Theatre.

Paul Lampert | plampert@yorku.ca

National Theatre School of Canada, MFA York

Associate Professor: Acting, directing

Professor Lampert has worked extensively as a director, actor, and teacher.  His European experience includes acting with Poland's Theatre BLIK and the International Theatre in Vienna, Austria, as well as directing the national premiere of Oleanna for Stary Theatre in Kraków, Poland; Raised In Captivity in Berlin, Germany; I Claudia in Barcelona, Shanghai and Munich; and Machinal at the East 15 Acting School in London, UK. His many Canadian directing credits include work for Actors Repertory Company, Globe Theatre, Theatre Aquarius, Persephone Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Tattoo, The Great Canadian Theatre Company, Buddies In Bad Times and the National Theatre School of Canada as well as six seasons with the Shaw Festival and three seasons with the Blyth Festival.  He has conducted theatre workshops in Austria, Cuba, England, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland.

Professor Lampert has served as associate director of Persephone Theatre, Saskatoon (1984-87) and artistic director of the George Brown Theatre School (1997-2000) and is currently co-artistic director of Theatre PANIK.

William J Mackwood | mackwood@yorku.ca
BFA, MFA Victoria
Assistant Professor: Design and production

Professor Mackwood is co-founder and co-artistic director of the multi-disciplinary drama, dance and opera company Out of the Box Productions. Over the last five years he has lead the design team for productions of The Third Taboo, Prior Engagement, Sound in Silence and most recently Opera Erotique. As a professional lighting designer he has designed for, among others, Ballet Victoria (Court of Miracles, Peter Pan, Alice a Wonderland of Dance), Kaleidoscope Theatre (Little Women, Disney’s Aladdin Jr.) and Chemainus Theatre (Lost in Yonkers, South Pacific, Saint Joan). In summer 2010 he designed lighting for dance works choreographerd by Holly Small, Susan Cash and Keiko Kitano at the World Dance Alliance Global Assembly in New York City. He is a professional member of Associated Designers of Canada, the Canadian Institute of Theatre Technology and IATSE Local 168.

The heart of Professor Mackwood's research lies in developing meaningful stories told through a performance fusion supported by sustainable ‘design on demand.’ He is a member of the faculty in York's Department of Dance, where he teaches teaches production for dance as well as lighting design for dance, dance video and intermedial performance at the graduate and senior undergraduate level.

John Mayberry | mayberry@yorku.ca
BA Toronto
Associate Professor: Production

Professor Mayberry has been a working theatre professional for 35 years and teaching for 30. He has worked as a carpenter, properties builder, performer, choreographer and writer. Passionately interested in everything humans can do or make, his current particular research interests include 19th century theatrical effects, ritual drama and street theatre, and health and safety issues in the entertainment industry. 

Professor Mayberry is an active member of the Canadian Institute of Theatre Technology (CITT) and the Health and Safety Commission of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT), and acts as a liaison with the Education Commission of USITT.  He also serves as vice-chair of the Technical Commission of the International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians (OISTAT) and on the board and education committee of Theatre Ontario.

James Mckernan | mckernan@yorku.ca
BFA York, BEd Technological Studies, OISE/Toronto
Assistant Professor: Technical theatre

Professor James McKernan teaches stage technology. His research is tied to sustainability, with a focus on seeking and implementing new, more ecologically responsible theatrical scenographic technologies.

Working in collaborating with industry partners and professional practitioners, his contributions in the field include the production of a series of symposia and professional development workshops on sustainable stage technology Topics of these presentations include the use of theatrical fog devices and lighting atmospheric effects, LED lighting as a sustainable alternative to conventional lighting fixtures, and the use of multimedia projection techniques and design in theatre.

Professor McKernan is an active member of both the Canadian and American Institutes of Theatre Technology. He shares his research on the Theatre Artisan Green Skills website.

Peter Mckinnon | mckinnon@yorku.ca
BA Victoria, MFA Texas
Professor: Stagecraft, production

Professor McKinnon has worked for more than two decades as a lighting designer, principally for dance and opera. In dance, he has lit the ballets of John Cranko, Brian MacDonald, William Forsyth, Sir Anthony Tudor, Reid Anderson and John Butler, and contemporary works by Serge Bennathan, David Earle, James Kudelka, Paul Taylor, Judy Jarvis and many others. Notable plays and operas he has designed include The Marriage of Figaro for Pacific Opera, The Medium for Opera Ora*Now, Florence: The Lady With The Lamp for the Elora Festival, and Sullivan and Gilbert at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa; Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto; and Kennedy Center, Washington, DC.

Peter McKinnon is founder/director of two production companies: Rare Gem Productions and Front Porch Theatre. As producer, his credits include the rock musical That’s Life, the runaway hit of the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the award-winning Squonk Opera in Toronto and on Broadway. As founding general manager of Summer at the Roxy in Owen Sound, Ontario, his productions included All in the Timing, Billy Bishop Goes to War and Colours in the Storm as well as several concert series. He recently served as production manager of Evil Dead: The Musical in Toronto.

He has served as president of Associated Designers of Canada and director of the Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology, and on the executive committee of the International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians (OISTAT) as well as numerous theatre companies.

Professor McKinnon was principal English editor of New Theatre Words, a lexicon of theatre terminology in 23 languages. He also edited Jean-Guy Lecat's book One Show, One Audience, One Single Space. Currently he is co-editing World Scenography, a three-volume series examining stage design throughout the world from 1975-2015.

Teresa Przybylski | teresap@yorku.ca
MSc Technical University, Kraków, MFA Academy of Fine Arts, Kraków
Associate Professor: Production

Professor Przybylski is an architect and theatre designer for theatre, opera, dance and film.  Her many credits include designs for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Shaw Festival, Canadian Opera Company, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Pacific Opera, Young People’s Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Factory Theatre, Canadian Stage, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Blyth Festival, Theatre Smith-Gilmour, Theatre Columbus and others. She is a recipient of five Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Theatre Design and two Gemini Awards for Film Production Design.

Professor Przybylski is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and Associated Designers of Canada.

Judith Rudakoff | rudakoff@yorku.ca

BA McGill, MA Alberta, PhD Toronto

Professor: Theatre Studies

Developmental dramaturg Judith Rudakoff has worked with emerging and established playwrights and artists throughout Canada from the Yukon to Nunavut and points between, and in Cuba, Denmark, South Africa, England and USA. She is the creator of The Four Elements and Elemental Lomograms, trans-cultural methodologies for initiating live performance and visual art.  Her most recent project is Common Plants: Cross Pollinations in Hybrid Reality , a SSHRC-funded, multidisciplinary, cross-cultural project involving artists and students from diverse cultural and geographical backgrounds including Iqaluit, Nunavut and Cape Town, South Africa. She is a member of Playwrights Guild of Canada and Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. Her current playwriting project is Beautiful Little Lies, a stage play set in Cuba.

Professor Rudakoff's books include Between the Lines: The Process of Dramaturgy (Playwrights Canada Press, 2002, co-editor Lynn M. Thomson); Fair Play: Conversations with Canadian Women Playwrights (Simon & Pierre, 1989, co-editor Rita Much); and Questionable Activities: Canadian Theatre Artists in Conversation with Canadian Theatre Students (Playwrights Canada Press, 2000). Her articles have appeared in The Drama Review, TheatreForum and Canadian Theatre Review. 

Dr. Rudakoff's teaching awards include the inaugural Faculty of Fine Arts Dean’s Prize for Teaching Excellence andYork's University-Wide Teaching Award as well as three consecutive NOW Magazine "Best of Toronto" awards. She was the first Canadian honoured with the Elliott Hayes Prize in Dramaturgy, for her work on South Asian choreographer Lata Pada’s multidisciplinary work, Revealed by Fire.

David Smukler | dsmukler@yorku.ca

BFA Carnegie Institute, MA Columbia

Professor: Voice

Professor Smukler has coached voice at major theatres and drama schools in Canada, the UK, US and the Netherlands, including classical theatre (Stratford/Ontario, Royal Court/London, CentreStage), opera (Royal Opera House Covent Garden, English Opera Group) and experimental theatre (Open Theatre). Recent coaching credits for the stage include Theatre and Company (Kitchener), 4th Line Theatre Company (Peterborough County) and Michael Kennard’s clown/buffoon The Hollow.

Professor Smukler also frequently works as a dialogue coach for film and television, where his credits include Norman Jewison’s Lazarus and the Hurricane starring Denzel Washington, John Hanna, Liev Schreiber and Deborah Unger; Boondock Saints with Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus; Resident Evil #2 with Mila Janovich and Thomas Kreutchman; Glitter with Mariah Carey and Max Beesley; and ABC’s Untitled History Project. He is the founder and director of Canada’s National Voice Intensive held in Vancouver each year.

Mark Wilson | pitwil@yorku.ca
Playhouse Acting School, MFA York

Associate Professor: Acting, directing

Associate Dean, Faculty of Fine Arts

Professor Wilson began his professional theatre career as an actor in 1983, and has extensive performance credits in theatres across Canada. His recent directing credits include Mister Invisible at St. John’s Resource Centre for the Arts in Newfoundland and Underworlds for Red Sky Performance at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio. Other directing credits include Romeo and Juliet for Theatre By The Bay; The Threepenny Opera for the George Brown Theatre School; Road, an Equity Showcase Theatre/George Brown Theatre School co-production; Caribou Song for Red Sky Performance (San Diego Theatre of the World Festival; with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall; and the chamber version tour to Switzerland); The Snow Queen (Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus at the DuMaurier Theatre and on its European tour); and The Starchild (CCOC). He received a Canadian Comedy Award nomination for best direction for That Dorothy Parker at the Berkeley Street Theatre.

Graduate Program in Theatre • Centre for Film & Theatre (CFT) 326
Phone: 416 736 2100 ext. 22204 • E-mail: gradthea@yorku.ca