Mr. Contini's diverse background as an actor, director, playwright, dramaturg, and filmmaker serves him well as a specialist in acting, acting for the camera, and voice production. George has worked extensively in regional theatres throughout the country for over 20 years. Named Best Actor in Miami and a five time nominee for the South Florida Critic's Carbonell Award, notable performances include Love Valour Compassion, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar, Jeffrey, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, The Food Chain, Burn This, Mystery of Irma Vep, King Lear, and most recently, Shear Madness at both the Kennedy Center in D.C. and the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. Among the shows George has directed in both professional and academic venues are Company, Holy Ghosts, Lion in Winter, Raft of the Medusa, and Baby. Also a playwright, Jumping through Windows (Carbonell Award Nomination -- Best New Work) was produced by New Theatre in Miami and Portraits of W.H. was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship for New Forms in Theatre. He has numerous TV, film, and commercial credits and has been seen hawking such products as White Castle, Motorola, and Toyota. Most recently, Mr. Contini's short film, Jumping through Windows which he wrote, directed, and photographed, had it's world premiere at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. The short film Meet the Patersons, for which he served as Director of Photography, screened at the LA International Shorts Festival and won first place in the Luna Film festival. Mr. Contini has developed an original solo performance piece called "Put It in the Scrapbook," based on the life of America's great vaudeville performer, Julian Eltinge. Mr. Contini is a recipient of the Sandy Beaver Special Teaching Award and the Richard B. Russell Teaching Award.

Mirla Criste has trained longest in diverse and many movement vocabularies and most intensely in diverse speaking and singing vocabularies. Her work centers on release and breath, as well as the symbiotic relationship between voice and movement training in theatre. She teaches courses in the voice, movement and acting curricula at UGA, based on the work of such theorists as Constantin Stanislavsky, Robert Cohen, F.M. Alexander, Jacques Lecoq and Kristin Linklater. Professor Criste most recently taught at Oberlin College in Ohio and Hamilton College in New York. In her professional life, she has served in virtually every capacity in professional film, television, concert dance, and the dramatic and musical stage, including 4-1/2 years as a member of the original Broadway cast of Miss Saigon. Earlier this year, Professor Criste directed and choreographed Urinetown for University Theatre. On leave from UGA during the Spring of 2008, she will present her research at three venues in the coming few months - the Educational Forum for Globalization on Culture, Research, and Teaching in Athens; the Association for Theatre in Higher Education's (ATHE) 2008 conference in Denver; and the annual international festival and forum, Performatica, in Cholula/Puebla, Mexico, where she will perform an excerpt from her original Contact Theatre work, Water: Drought, partially supported by a grant from UGA's Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE). Professor Criste is listed in Who's Who in America. You can find her portfolio at http://cristeworks.com.

Professionally, Professor Kundert-Gibbs has worked as a producer, director, vocal coach, and actress. In academia, she has taught in theatre programs across the country from Duke, to William and Mary to Indiana State University, where she headed the Graduate and Undergraduate Acting Programs, to Los Angeles and finally, happily embracing UGA. Ms. Kundert-Gibbs experiments in the integration of media and theatre and has directed many productions using varying forms of media including a production of Pinter’s New World Order which was presented at the International Pinter Festival in London, a production of Cabaret with Theatre X from Manheim, Germany, and Death of Salesman at The Warehouse Theatre. Her most recent acting work includes playing Emer in the world premiere of Sword Against the Sea, which toured to The International Yeats Festival in Sligo, Ireland. While in L.A, she was instrumental in founding the Kingsmen Shakespeare Festival serving as vocal coach, pre-show director and actor. She has been extensively involved in KC/ACTF as a member of the Region III Executive Board. After spending a year acting and teaching with Karamu House Theatre, Ms. Kundert-Gibbs has been drawn to multicultural theatre work and has directed African American productions for The Warehouse Theatre, UNC-Asheville and Clemson University. When teaching, Ms. Kundert-Gibbs focuses both directing and acting on the work of Sanford Meisner. As a believer in the interaction of the breath, voice, body and emotions, she incorporates work such as Alba Emoting, Transactional Analysis and Bioenergetics into the classroom. Her voice classes focus on the work of Kristin Linklater and Edith Skinner. She is also interested in Eastern bodywork such as yoga and Tae Kwon Do, is a certified black belt and teaches kickboxing. In all disciplines, she hopes to teach students to value their instincts, trust their impulses, and celebrate their humanity.

Professor Paolino currently heads the MFA Acting Program and the BA acting curriculum at UGA and is Director of Theatre. For ten years he headed the BFA and MFA Performance programs at the University of Oklahoma. In spring of 2003, while on professional leave, he performed lead roles in the Chicago premiere of Edward Allan Baker's Mafia on Prozac and Up, Down, Strange, Charmed, Truth and Beauty. He most recently performed the role of Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for University Theatre at UGA. His areas of specialty are acting and directing. Much of his professional work was during an eight-year period in NYC where he appeared with actors such as Rip Torn, Geraldine Page and Fisher Stevens. He has directed at Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Theatre, Theatre Matrix and performed roles in feature films and daytime dramas. He has been instrumental in the development of new playscripts, particularly with student playwrights through his involvement as Playwriting Chair for KC/ACTF, New Plays Chair for the Southwestern Theatre Association (SWTA) and with the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). Former students of his have appeared in Twister, Sorority Boys, Roseanne, Guiding Light, Third Watch, Friends, The George Carlin show, Married with Children, E.R., Law and Order, and with theatre companies such as the Denver Theatre Center, Steppenwolf, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville and Second City among many others.