Antje Ascheid is a specialist in film history and criticism. In addition, she is interested in film and video production and screenwriting. Her academic research focuses on women and film, German Cinema and film genres. She has published numerous articles and presented papers at many national professional conferences. Her first book, Hitler's Heroines: Stardom, Womanhood and the Popular in Nazi Cinema, was published with Temple University Press in 2003. She has been professionally active in the field of documentary and independent film production in New York City. Before joining the faculty at UGA, Dr.Ascheid taught at Smith College and at SUNY New Paltz.

Dr. Auslander, whose full-time appointment is at the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Literature, Communication and Culture, serves as an Affilate Professor in our department through a special agreement between Georgia Tech and UGA. He functions as a full-fledged member of the doctoral faculty, serving on graduate committees, participating in curriculum development and teaching one graduate course each year in the department. He has written on aesthetic and cultural performances as diverse as theatre, performance art, music, stand-up comedy, and courtroom procedures. His research interests include performance theory, the relationship of performance to media and technology, popular music, and intellectual property. He is the author of five books, including Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, and editor or co-editor of two collections. His most recent book, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music, was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2006. His current book project is a handbook, Theory for Performance Studies.

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.

Mr. Dunham, Scenic and Lighting Designer, has previously designed and taught at the University of Central Florida, Stephens College, Vanderbilt and SUNY at Stony Brook. He is active in the national leadership of USITT (United States Institute for Theatre Design and Technology) and is currently serving as a Board Member of the national organization. He was Co-Commissioner of the USITT Lighting Commission from 1998 to 2006. His professional design credits include numerous regional and stock productions throughout the East Coast and Midwest. Notable credits include: the Brunswick Music Theatre (Maine State Music Theatre), The Disney Institute, Music Theatre North, The Dunes and Okaboji Summer Theatres, The Springer Opera House and The Atlanta Lyric Theatre. He has also designed both scenery and lighting for a number of metropolitan New York regional and Off and Off-Off Broadway theatres including: Circle Repertory Theatre, Theatre Three, Broadhollow Productions, The Jean Cocteau Rep., and the Directors' Theatre along with being a member of the Drama League. He has authored a number of feature articles for technical and trade publications relating to theatrical design and technology and was editor and contributing author for Practical Projects for Teaching Lighting Design (Second Edition) and an advising editior to Projects for Teaching Scene Design. Two of his articles have won Herbert D. Greggs Awards from Theatre Design and Technology. In addition to theatrical venues, he designs both architectural and landscape lighting and is the principal in the design practice of Dunham Design Associates. Within this area he has earned the LC Lighting Certification and holds memberships in the IESNA (Illuminating Engineering Society of North America) and IALD (International Association of Lighting Designers).

Jonathan Frome is Visiting Assistant Professor, specializing in Film Studies and new media theory. His current research is attempting to answer questions about why traditional and new media affect viewers and players differently. Specifically, how do films and videogames generate emotions, and why do they tend to generate different kinds of emotions? His other film interests include documentary film, Asian film, and animation. His other new media interests include videogame theory, embodiment, and multiplayer contexts.

Dr. Giles is a specialist in African-American Theatre, directing and acting. She is the author of articles focusing on early African-American Theatre in New York City and has delivered papers to the national educational Theatre Conference, Third World Theatre Conference, and the African-American Arts Development Forum, among others. She has several playscripts to her credit, and has directed a number of productions in New York State. A professional actress and member of Actors Equity Association, A.F.T.R.A. and S.A.G., Dr. Giles has performed a number of roles off-Broadway as well as in film, television and radio. Before coming to the University of Georgia, Dr. Giles taught at State University of New York at Albany and City College, City University of New York.

Tina Hantula is a costume designer and serves as the costume technologist for the University of Georgia. Formerly on the staff of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Ms. Hantula has designed costumes for productions in several theatres from North Carolina to Iowa as well as for productions at Teatro Signorelli in Cortona, Italy. She has served as a staff member of the Alliance Theatre and the Costume Collection of New York. Ms. Hantula has also built costumes for the distinguished stage and film costume designer, Patricia Zipprodt.

CG Animator and Mechanical Engineer. Professor Hussey founded the department's program in 3-D computer animation. He has produced myriad animations including, most recently, a series of historical recreations of ships and other artifacts for the documentaries The Japanese Navy and Boneyards, which aired internationally on the History Channel.

Ivan Ingermann began his design career by working with some of the greatest names in costuming for the stage including Tony Award winning designers Willa Kim (Grease), Desmond Heeley (The Snow Maiden), William Ivey Long (Chicago) and Susan Hilferty (Too Cleaver By Half, How To Succeed In Business). He has designed costumes for films including Suits, Rules of the Game, Escape to Life, and Sundance Award Winner 2x4. He also coupled with celebrity event designer Colin Cowie to create costumes for the Grand opening of the Bahamian Atlantis Resort featuring Grace Jones. For MTV, he has created designs and style for Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Christy Turlington, Carson Daily, Jimmy Fallon, Natalie Portman, and Lindsay Lohan, among others. In Los Angeles, he assisted Hollywood costume designer Joseph Aulisi on Charlie’s Angels II: Full Throttle, as well as Emmy Award winning designer Dona Granata. In 2004 Ivan’s own designs were featured on Kirstie Alley as Pier One Imports spokeswoman, garnishing a nomination from the Costume Designers Guild for Excellence in Commercial Costume Design. While continuing to design several national commercials for companies such as Toyota, Pontiac, BMW, and McDonalds Ivan designed the look for the music video “Gotta Girl” for Wheat under the notable director Erickson Core. Most recently, Ivan collaborated with Jeff Daniels designing costumes for Escanaba in Love at the Purple Rose Theatre and The Gem Theatre.

John Kundert-Gibbs specializes in 3D computer modeling and animation, motion capture, and modern drama. Prior to coming to UGA, Dr. Kundert-Gibbs was director of the Digital Production Arts program at Clemson University. He has authored or co-authored numerous publications on Maya and 3D computer graphics that have been translated into nine languages. He is also author of No-thing is Left to Tell: Zen/Chaos Theory in the Dramatic Art of Samuel Beckett (1999), and coeditor of Pinter at Sixty (1993), and has created effects for live-action projects, and designs electronic media for theatrical productions.

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.

Billy Don (B. Don) Massey joined the University of Georgia in 1982 after five years as instructor, scenic designer and technical director for the University of Arkansas. His other academic degrees include a Master of Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Education. While most of his design work has been in college theatre, his professional/nonacademic credits include work for Theatre in the Square in Marietta, GA and the Highlands Playhouse in Highlands, NC. Most recently he was a contributing artist for the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington D. C. He is currently working on a book regarding his experiences working for John Paul II, which took him to 27 countries and 33 cities around the world. Mr. Massey teaches scenic design, lighting design, and theatrical technology.

Richard Neupert is the Wheatley Professor of the Arts and a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor. He teaches film history and theory. His special areas of interest are French cinema, narrative theory, and animation. His books include A History of the French New Wave Cinema (Wisconsin UP, 2003, 2007) and The End: Narration and Closure in Cinema (Wayne State UP, 1995). He also translated two books from French: Aesthetics of Film (Texas UP,1997) and The French New Wave: An Artistic School (Blackwell, 2002). Professor Neupert is coordinator of UGA's Film Studies major and Film Studies minor, and on the advisory board for the Cine movie theater. Before coming to UGA, he taught at Northwestern University and Georgia Tech.

Michael O’Connell came to UGA in 2005. He had previously been the Technical Director for the University of Iowa Department of Theatre, The Dallas Theatre Center, The Portland Stage Company, Capital Rep, The North Shore Music Theatre, and The Maine State Music Theatre. He has worked as Production Manager for the Virginia Stage Company, and St. Mary’s University where he also designed lighting. He has designed scenery and lighting for Riverside Theatre, and lighting for Cedar Rapids Opera, both in Iowa. Prior to technical direction and design Michael spent many years as a carpenter in regional theatres including the McCarter Theatre, St. Louis Opera, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Trinity Square Repertory Company, Merrimack Regional Theatre, and The Trump Plaza Casino Showroom.

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.

Peach Pittenger is a Franklin Postdoctoral Fellow and visiting assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies, and an affiliated faculty member in the Women's Studies Institute at University of Georgia . She studies American theatre history, women in theatre, and popular entertainment. Professor Pittenger earned her Ph.D. in theatre history, literature, and criticism from The Ohio State University in 2005. She has published articles in the Journal of American Theatre and Drama and Theatre History Studies. She has presented papers at the American Society for Theatre Research, International Federation of Theatre Research, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Popular Culture, American Studies, International Comparative Drama, and Mid-America Theatre conferences. Professor Pittenger is a member of American Society for Theatre Research, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, International Federation of Theatre Research, and Phi Beta Kappa. Professor Pittenger teaches a theatre history survey course for theatre and film majors, as well as women in performance, script analysis, and drama appreciation (honors) courses at UGA. She has also taught American theatre and a lecture course on theatre appreciation. Professor Pittenger earned her M.A. in theatre studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her B.A. is from Smith College in theatre and English. She has earned several fellowships and grants, including the Distinguished University Fellowship at Ohio State University and a Coca-Cola Critical Difference for Women Dissertation grant.

Farley Richmond, Professor and Director of the Center for Asian Studies. Dr. Richmond teaches courses in Asian Theatre, with an emphasis in Indian drama and theatre. He also teaches courses in introduction to theatre, script analysis, and directing. His publications include: Kutiyattam: Sanskrit Theater of India, (CD-ROM University of Michigan Press), Indian Theatre: Traditions of Performance, (University of Hawaii Press), and Theatre: The Collaborative Art and Plays of Provocation, Vols. I and II (Kendall/Hunt). His articles appear in The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre, The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre, The Cambridge Guide to Asian Theatre, as well as the Asian Theatre Journal, among others. His most recent productions were Antigone, Art, The Playboy of the Western World, and The Crucible at UGA and Oleanna at SUNY/ Stony Brook. He is a founding member of the Asian Theatre Journal for which he serves as South Asia Area Editor. He is currently on the Board and Vice President of the World Association for Vedic Studies. He has chaired the theatre departments at Michigan State University, SUNY/Stony Brook, and The University of Georgia.

David Saltz is a specialist in modern drama, performance theory, the philosophy of art, and directing. He currently serves as editor of Theatre Journal. Over the past decade, his primary research focus has been the interaction between live performance and digital media. He is Principal Investigator of Virtual Vaudeville, a large-scale research project funded by the National Science Foundation to simulate a nineteenth century vaudeville performance on the computer. He has explored the use of computer technology extensively in his own work as a director and teacher. Along those lines he established the Interactive Performance Laboratory at UGA, has directed a series of productions incorporating real-time interactive digital media, and has created interactive sculptural installations that have been exhibited nationally. He has published 18 articles in scholarly journals and books, and is coeditor (with David Krasner) of the book Staging Philosophy: Intersections between Theatre, Performance and Philosophy (University of Michigan Press, 2006). Dr. Saltz received a Sandy Beaver Special Teaching Award in 2008. He has served as Secretary of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Before coming to Georgia, Dr. Saltz taught at State University of New York at Stony Brook and The College of William and Mary.