Charlie Sexton, Artistic Director of Commonwealth Theatre Center, and Dr. Janna Segal, Director of Graduate Studies at UofL’s Department of Theatre Arts, discuss Shakespeare, dramaturgy, and theatre arts education ahead of the 2019 Young American Shakespeare Festival that opens May 9 at CTC. Tune in each Thursday at 10am to listen to Keith Waits talk with creatives on LVA's Artebella On The Radio. WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com.
Charlie Sexton is the Artistic Director of Commonwealth Theatre Center. He was among the first class of Conservatory students of Walden Theatre. Charlie’s resume includes many artistic accomplishments as an actor, director, and playwright, but his proudest achievement is the professional training and mentoring of thousands of students through the Walden Conservatory program, the students have been accepted into the nation’s best college theatre programs, including Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon, New York University, Northern Illinois University, and the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater.
Notable students include Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games), Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter), Jess Weixler (The Good Wife), Wes Ramsey (Charmed), Tom Graves (The Rude Mechanicals), Gisela Chipe (Asolo Rep’s Hamlet, Prince of Cuba), and Adam Wesley Brown (Once on Broadway).
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.
Young American Shakespeare Festival May 9 – 19
Macbeth, directed by Hallie Dizdarevic
Henry V, directed by Jennifer Pennington
The Winter’s Tale, directed by Charlie Sexton