HOLLY L. DERR 818-800-3270 v [email protected] v http://hollyderr.com As a director, I create theater characterized by a rich physical life, sociological perspective, deep characterization and real human interactions, using a combination of the Viewpoints and Composition, the tools and philosophies of Epic Theater, and Stanislavsky’s system. As a teacher, I ask students both to imagine and to think, thus empowering them to invest creatively and intellectually in their work and in the world. As a public intellectual, I use the theoretical and analytical tools of the theater to reflect upon broader issues of art, culture, and race and gender politics. POSITIONS HELD Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, OR: Producing Fellow, 2017. Responsibilities included serving on the casting team; participating in season selection; based on interviews with nine department heads, developing and proposing structural changes to the institution to enable the administration to better serve the work being made; co- producing the audiobook of the 2017 production of Julius Caesar; directing The Daedalus Project Variety Show, a community productions event; and facilitating a Decolonization Workshop of plays by Annalisa Dias, an OSF event as part of Southern Oregon University’s Indigenous People’s Day celebration. Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY: Artist-in-Residence and Director of the Workshop Program, Fall 2014 to Spring 2016. Responsibilities include teaching, directing, and advising directing students on student productions as well as advising first-year students as part of teaching a freshman seminar. Courses Taught: “Production Seminar:” Director of American Medea and Macbeth. Joined for seminar discussions by faculty from the Classics and English departments. (Fall 2014 and Fall 2015). “Introduction to Directing:” Directors, like actors, must develop their own particular process of solving creative problems and collaborating with other artists; yet, because every play and every project is different, they must also be able to adapt that process to ever-changing circumstances. Across genres and periods, however, the job of the director involves some key tasks: to translate written text, theory, actor impulses, and design ideas into a live performance. As part of that process, the director must determine the story she wants to tell, the world in which she will tell it, the people who will embody it, the meaning of the words that are spoken, the movements that will illuminate that meaning, and how the elements of sound, light, set, and costumes can come together with the actors in space and time. This course provides directors the chance to engage in each step of that process both theoretically and practically (Fall 2014). “Special Studies in Acting, Reconstructing Style:” Whereas most Styles classes intend to train actors to perfectly execute the proper curtsey of the period, this class intends to enable artists to understand the philosophies behind various methodologies and to apply them to texts from both within and outside the period that coincides with that methodology’s creation. Students will learn to work collaboratively with other artists in creating original Play Worlds that both serve the author’s intentions and satisfy contemporary audiences and to master and adapt the skills necessary to create work that investigates and interrogates form rather than reiterates it (Fall 2014). “Introduction to Acting:” This course focuses on the fundamentals of acting: neuromuscular efficiency, existing within given circumstances, playing actions, adapting in the moment, using verbal imagery, and utilizing externals to create character. The first hour of class focuses on physical training. The second two hours involves scene work (Spring 2015). “Intermediate Directing:” In Intro to Directing, we covered play analysis; use of sources and the creation of a “big idea”; creation of a unique playworld; text work; character as relationship; and the use of time, space, light, and sound to tell story. In Intermediate Directing, we will continue to practice those skills while accelerating the rate of production and integrating issues of period and style. During the first of two sections, we work on scenes from three of Euripides’ tragedies (Electra, Orestes, and Helen). In the second section, we focus on Shakespeare. For both sections, every student will act in two scenes and direct one, synthesizing historical understanding, literary analysis, and an understanding of how to tell a story in space and time into a final presentation that includes a specific use of the studio, light, sound, text, and staging in furtherance of a “big idea” (Spring 2015). “Special Studies: Acting/Directing Epic Theater:” A course for actors and directors to explore making Epic Theater according to the principles laid out by Bertolt Brecht. Includes an investigation of Brecht's political theater theories and practices as well as the application of those practices to non-Brechtian texts (Fall 2015). “Speculative Fiction in New Plays (Scribner Seminar):” What specific issues are artists attempting to address using Speculative Fiction? What has historically been the role of live entertainment in performing these genres and what is it now? Students explore these questions through a combination of readings in literary and art theory, history, comparative mythology, gender studies, and new plays, analyzing plays according to their genre and the social, political, and economic questions they raise. The class integrates theory with practice by reading scenes aloud, proposing possible staging and designs, and hosting playwrights, designers, and gore experts to talk about their work. The final project will be an original, short genre play or a paper (Fall 2015). “Advanced Directing Practicum:” Advising Emily Moler on the Black Box Production (Spring 2015), and teaching Hannah Baker and Aaron Ardisson how to create Epic theater (Fall 2016). “Advanced Scene Study:” What is the job of the professional actor? What work can be done on a role outside of rehearsal that will adequately prepare the actor for productive work in rehearsal? Which creative decisions fall to the actor and which to the director and other collaborators? This course provides an experience working on a role as a professional without an acting coach or an acting teacher. Students do preparation outside of rehearsals such as scene analysis, memorization, and research into the play and the role, while class time is devoted to working with other actors and a professional director (Spring 2016). “Director as Collaborative Artist:” Each of three units consist of three new plays, written, directed, and acted by students, who learn how to collaborate when they as the individual artist ARE the originator of a project, to collaborate when they as the individual artist ARE NOT the originator of a project, as well as what the job of the writer is, what the job of the director in the context of a project that s/he did not originate is, and what the job of the actor is when working for writers, for directors, and as the originators of their own projects (Spring 2016). “Workshop Productions:” Students learn how to engage in meaningful research and apply that research to a production, how to create a rehearsal schedule, how to create a floor plan, and how to engage in constructive critiques with their peers (Spring 2016). Advising Senior Projects: Advised directing students (Spring 2014); acting students (Fall 2015); and playwriting students (Spring 2015). Independent Studies: Advising a Film/Media Studies Independent Study in which student worked on integration of visual media in Macbeth (Fall 2015); worked with actor on monologues First-Year Experience: Advised 14 freshmen on all-college requirements Majors: Advised approx. 15 majors per semester Workshop Program Director: Produced student-directed season of 4 plays per semester, including soliciting and reviewing proposals, selecting the season with a committee, supervising casting, helping students create rehearsal schedules, and helping to solve creative and administrative challenges. Producer, Special Event: “Staging the Supernatural:” Brought Stephanie Cox-Williams (gore expert), Mac Rogers (playwright), Joan Jubett (director), Andrea Hairston (playwright and professor), and Adam Szymkowicz to campus. Participants attended “Speculative Fiction in New Plays” class, had lunch with students, and participated in a panel discussion. Students worked with Jubett to stage a scene from Romeo and Juliet and Zombies as part of the evening event. University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA: Guest Director (Fall 2012), an expressionist production of The Metal Children, by Adam Rapp. Chapman University, Orange, CA: Guest Director, Rimers of Eldritch (Spring 2012), by Lanford Wilson, and Instructor in “Styles”. University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA: Guest Director (Winter 2011), directed a rave-inspired Twelfth Night on the main stage and created a thirty-five minute version for a tour to underserved communities as part of the Gluck Fellows Arts Education Outreach Program. California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA: Guest Director (Fall 2010), Ruins, a new musical in which a family’s past overtakes their present, by Brittany Knupper. American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Actor Training at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA: Viewpoints Instructor & Guest Director (2006-2010). Instructor: in the Viewpoints, a philosophy of movement translated into