Theatre director and Simmons College faculty Martin French & U of L Assistant Professor Dr. Janna Segal talked about the challenges facing academic theatre programs in an uncertain time. Tune in 10 am each Thursday to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com to hear Keith Waits talk with artists on LVA's Artebella On the Radio.
Martin French is the Co-Artistic Director of The Chamber Theatre and one of the Artistic Directorate for Louisville Repertory Company. From Ireland originally, he has worked in theatre for many years, covering a wide variety of positions. By trade a designer, and by preference a director, Martin has worked professionally in theatre for over 20 years in Dublin, London, and Louisville, combining his creative work with positions as a theatre technician, and more recently instructor. He has been an artistic director with Ourclann and Dublin Shakespeare in Ireland, and in Louisville has previously been on the board of The Alley Theatre, and currently serves on the board of the Louisville Repertory Company.
Depending on when you ask him, his influences may include Edward Gordon Craig, Vsevolod Meyehold, Tadeusz Kantor, Yoshi Oida, Robert Wilson, and Silviu Purcarete. He is known as a devotee to Henrik Ibsen, a student of the ancient Greeks, and a dabbler in Noh theatre when given the chance.
Some highlights of his directing work include The Bloomsday Breakfast Show, Elektra, Busu, Electile Dysfunction, Metamorphosis, and Chek-Mate.
His article, Don’t Cry For Theatre, Academia, was the catalyst for this conversation.
Dr. Janna Segal teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Louisville in: theatre history, literature, and theory; Shakespeare and Shakespearean adaptation; American feminist theatre; and dramaturgy. Prior to joining the UofL faculty, Dr. Segal was an Assistant Professor in the Theatre Department and in the MLitt/MFA Shakespeare and Performance program at Mary Baldwin College, and an IHUM Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University. She has published single and co-authored works on Shakespeare’s As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet; Dekker and Middleton’s The Roaring Girl; Fo and Rame’s Elisabetta; and Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Her scholarly work has appeared in such journals as SDC Journal, JEMCS, Shakespeare, and Early Modern Literary Studies, as well as in numerous anthologies, including the forthcoming Performances at Court in Shakespeare’s Era (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018) and How to Teach a Play (Bloomsbury, 2018). Dr. Segal is also a freelance dramaturg whose past production work includes Shakespeare, Shakespearean adaptation, contemporary theatre, and new plays in development. She is the Resident Dramaturg of the Comparative Drama Conference, for which she dramaturgs two to three new plays a year, and a dramaturg for ATHE’s annual New Play Development Workshop. At UofL, she has dramaturged Baltimore,Eurydice, and The Master and Margarita, and The Taming of the Shrew. She has also worked locally as a guest dramaturg for Commonwealth Theatre Center. Dr. Segal is a member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA), and she serves on the Board of the Comparative Drama Conference.