Teaching Philosophy

Guiding young artists towards developing a craft within the theatre is a journey uniquely interwoven with the personal experiences of each student, but I’ve found a set of common goals provides a roadmap to keep us all headed down the same collaborative path. These goals target artistic skills–as well as life skills–that will benefit each student’s future, both in and out of the rehearsal room.

The first is to lay the foundation of a craft, by which I mean a set of reproducible, action-oriented steps to serve as a grounded launching pad for the creative process. Craft should be as malleable as it is trusted, conforming to the needs of each individual artist in an infinitely diverse set of artistic endeavors. Rather than a map dictating the course, it is one’s compass – providing an objective frame of reference for exploring the landscape of each new project.

The second goal is two-fold: developing critical thinking skills en route to articulating written and especially oral responses to ideas and work. The ability to translate one’s internal response with clarity, specificity, and respect into constructive feedback is vital to one’s own training as well as that of one’s peers. I continue to hone and draw on this skill every day in a myriad of circumstances and prioritize it in the classroom.

The third goal is to kindle a curiosity for self-guided discovery outside the classroom. Raising students’ awareness of the wealth of free material available to them that gives insight into the craft of industry leaders past and present encourages them to take ownership of their growth, as well as delve more deeply into their own particular areas of interest. This approach provides a richer classroom experience as they infuse our discussions with these influences, while also fueling their personal growth long after the course has ended.

It is worth noting that these reflections are framed with acting and directing practicum courses in mind, but they translate to my approach with more content-based literature or history surveys as well. The focus on articulating a personal response to the material with an awareness of a relationship to its history, its industry, and the personal responses of one’s peers guides the way in both settings.

As the moderator and leader in this forum of multiple perspectives, I also believe it is imperative for me to continually be exposing myself to new work, writers, and artists so that my contribution to the dialogue has a broader frame of reference.

At its core, I find teaching to be the facilitation of each student’s engagement with material or live work through his or her own lens of experience. This is coupled with facilitating an effective communal dialogue stemmed from each of those lenses that stands to expand understanding through the diversity of the group. When the students realize that their capacity to learn is limited only by their own ability to critically articulate their response along with a willingness to share that response, allowing it to live/breath/adapt in dialogue with trusted peers, the passion ignited by the ownership they take of their education is palpable. Creating the safe space for that to occur while gently guiding them as they build the craft to serve as their artistic compass is the most rewarding work I’ve undertaken.

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