Current Students

M.F.A. in Drama & Theatre for Youth and Communities 

Bethany Lynn Corey

Bethany Lynn Corey is a third year M.F.A. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin where much of her research surrounds the use of drama and theatre for children under the age of six. Bethany's work in Theatre for the Very Young has led to the creation of the SPARK! Theatre Ensemble which produces original theatre pieces intentionally designed for the youngest audiences. Bethany has worked nationally and internationally as an actress, director and teaching artist. She holds a dual B.A. in Music and Theatre for Children and Public Communications from American University. Currently Bethany serves as teaching artist for the Drama for Schools program, is developing work in partnership with Trike Theatre, collaborating with Patch Theatre and serves as the chair of The American Alliance for Theatre and Education's International Network. For more information visit www.bethanylynncorey.com.

Lara Dossett

Lara Dossett is in her second year as a Masters of Fine Arts candidate in the Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities program at The University of Texas Austin. Hailing originally from Chicago, Lara has worked as a teaching artist and administrator for Steppenwolf, Northlight and Writers’ Theatres to create in-school theatre education programs, write curriculum and teach residency classes. She is a graduate of Illinois State University and studied in London with the English Touring Theatre. Currently Lara is engaged in the implementation of drama-based instruction in Austin public schools through Drama for Schools, UT's arts integration professional development program for teachers. Her goal is to empower students and teachers to enliven and deepen public education through arts integration and community dialogue.

Emily Freeman

 Emily Freeman is a M.F.A. candidate in the Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities program at UT Austin. She received her B.A. in Theatre from Northwestern University. Emily also studied in London with New York University’s Drama Education program. She has worked for The John F. Kennedy for Performing Arts, Imagination Stage, Asolo Repertory, and Orlando Repertory Theatre. Emily is an applied theatre artist, director, playwright, and teacher. Her practice and research focuses on theatre and social justice. Her play, And Then Came Tango, was developed her first year of study at UT Austin and will be featured in the 2012-2013 UT Austin main stage season. Her thesis research will examine how interactive social justice theatre for youth enacts feminist performance pedagogy. She’s a member of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, The Association for Theatre in Higher Education, TYA USA/ASSITEJ, and International Performing Arts for Youth.

Meg Greene

Meg Greene is a second year M.F.A. candidate in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities at UT Austin. She graduated from The Ohio State University with a major in theatre performance with an emphasis in outreach, as well as a degree in journalism. After OSU, she moved to Washington, DC and began working as an actor and a teaching artist. As an actor, she has performed roles in shows ranging from issue-based theater to classical theater and theatre for young audiences. With over six years of experience as a teaching artist, she has taught various topics in theater and creative writing with all ages. She has taught for Columbus Children's Theatre, Arena Stage, Young Playwrights’ Theater, Adventure Theatre, Imagination Stage, Creative Action and the Zach Theatre. Meg's passion is to create theatre with and for young audiences that challenges, questions, excites and enchants. Her work is fueled by the desire to tell diverse stories and challenge the traditional representations we see on our Theatre for Young Audience's stages. She believes that all youth have a story to tell and she wants to nurture a space for these stories to breathe, to yell, to whisper, to laugh and most of all, to be heard.

Ben Hardin

Ben Hardin is in his second year of the M.F.A. Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities Program at the University of Texas at Austin. Originally from Traverse City, Michigan, Ben is a proud Michigander. Ben graduated from Albion College (Albion, MI) with a B.A. in Theatre and Philosophy. This foundation in both Theatre and Philosophy greatly influences his work at The University of Texas. Ben's current scholarship examines the use of drama-based critical inquiry for interrogating and developing the emerging personal professional identity of pre-service teachers.

Lindsay Hearn

Lindsay Hearn is an M.F.A. Candidate in the Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities program at The University of Texas. She received her B.A. in Theatre and Psychology from Northwestern, where she restructured a summer arts program for her honors thesis. After graduation, she ran the Summer Arts for Youth Program with Young Audiences Indiana and spent a year apprenticing in the education department at Imagination Stage in Bethesda, Maryland, working as a teaching artist in youth theatre, drama classes, and arts integration programming. At UT, Lindsay’s work centers on teaching and directing middle school and high school students to promote positive youth development.

Noah Martin

Noah Martin comes to Austin from the great Pacific Northwest where he worked as a teaching Artist and theatre maker in Portland, Oregon. Noah has partnered with teachers and students to teach arts-integrated lessons in schools throughout Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Austin. As an artist, Noah is primarily interested in site-specific interactive theatre and has directed/created four site-specific plays on bike that were seen by hundreds of pedaling audience members of all ages. At UT, Noah works closely with Drama for Schools facilitating professional development workshops and partnering with Austin area teachers. He is currently working on his thesis: a series of playbuilding workshops with a group of public elementary school teachers themed around the systems, people, and ideas that shape their pedagogy and identity as educators.

Sidney Monroe

Megan Nevels

Megan Nevels graduated from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA and spent 6 months studying at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. She wrote and performed Khawuleza, a one-person play about HIV/AIDS in South Africa, as her senior thesis, and plans to travel back to Cape Town to devise theatre pieces with HIV-positive youth. Megan has worked at UCLA as the Coordinator for the summer youth acting program ActOne and as the Programs Intern and later as a Youth Mentor with The Unusual Suspects Theatre Company in Los Angeles. She has been a featured playwright and spoken word artist at various festivals and events in Los Angeles, Claremont, Durban and Cape Town.

Meredyth Pederson

Meredyth Pederson is a first year in the Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities program, and she comes to UT Austin from Lenox, Massachusetts by way of several other states. She has taught with Imagination Stage (Washington, DC), Lexington Children's Theatre (Lexington, KY) Trinity Repertory Company (Providence, RI) and Metro Theater Company (St. Louis, MO). She has a B.A. in theatre performance with a minor in education studies from American University. Meredyth hopes to focus her artistry and scholarship here at UT in arts integration and teaching artist training. She blogs about these topics and her life as a teaching artist at ArtSmart: artsedblog.wordpress.com — with Meredyth Pederson.

Elizabeth Schildkret

Elizabeth Schildkret graduated from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky with a B.A. in Theatre and Spanish. In 2008, Elizabeth received a Fulbright fellowship to teach English in Merida, Venezuela and has since returned to Venezuela twice to teach classes and lead professional development programs for English teachers. Elizabeth’s research focuses on Latino Theatre for Young Audiences and drama and theatre for language acquisition. Elizabeth is in her third year in the DTYC M.F.A. program at University of Texas at Austin.

Spring Snyder

Spring Snyder is a M.F.A. candidate in the Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities Program who comes to us from Portland, Oregon. She started her theatre training at the American and Musical Dramatic Academy in New York City and then continued on to The University of Montana, Missoula. While pursuing her degree in Theatre Education, she co-founded a youth activist theatre group, and spent a year studying abroad at EWHA Women's University in Seoul, South Korea. Spring has loved the concept of theatre as a means of education and creating social change since the moment she realized it was a real thing. She has worked with Missoula Children's Theatre, Sight Theatre Group, Young Players, and Oregon Children's Theatre, and has taught Theatre of the Oppressed to a range of students and cultures from teenagers in California to Jesuit Priests in India.

Emily Thomas

Emily Thomas is a first year M.F.A. candidate in the Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities program at The University of Texas at Austin. She received a B.F.A. in Theatre Performance and a B.A. in English Studies, Summa Cum Laude, from Niagara University, New York. She has worked as a Teaching Assistant for Camp Broadway at Shea's Performing Arts Center (Buffalo) and is currently a Teaching Artist Apprentice at Zach Theatre (Austin). Emily hopes to focus her work as a drama practitioner in Positive Youth Development.