Matthew Maguire
Theatre Program Director
Head of Acting Program
Matthew Maguire is a co-artistic director of Creation Production Company, with which he has produced more than 50 new works. His plays include Instinct, which premiered Off-Broadway at The Lion Theatre in 2012; Wild Man, which played in New York and Los Angeles in 2010; The Tower, Phaedra, Abandon, Skin, with architects Diller & Scofidio at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels; and the creation with Philip Glass and Molissa Fenley of A Descent Into the Maelström for Australia’s Adelaide Festival, among many others. His directing projects include Molière and Charpentier’s Le Malade Imaginaire for the Long Beach Opera, and Manhattan Theatre Club’s Downtown Uptown Festival. A proud alumnus of New Dramatists, he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the McKnight and Hammerstein Foundations, New York Foundation for the Arts, and commissions from the NEA, NYSCA, and Meet the Composer. His most recently published book (NoPassport Press, 2009) is Matthew Maguire: Three Plays, which includes The Tower, Luscious Music, and The Desert. His awards include an Obie for Acting and an Obie for Directing.
Becky Bodurtha
Costume Shop Supervisor
Costume Design, Stage Makeup and Hair
Becky Bodurtha works as a freelance costume designer, wig designer, and assistant in addition to managing the costume shop at Fordham. Costume design credits include, in New York: The Strangest (HERE Culturemart), The Wife (The Lark, IRT, Access Theatre), Anon(ymous), Mrs. Packard, Bulrusher (Fordham). Regional: The Producers, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Fiddler on the Roof (New London Barn Playhouse), Much Ado About Nothing (Vermont Shakespeare Company), The Clean House (Iowa Summer Repertory Theatre). Costume assistant credits include: Sacrifice (Rabindra Sadan, Kolkata), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Twist (Alliance Theatre), Trust (Second Stage), Happiness (Lincoln Center Theatre). She received an MFA from the University of Iowa.
Kai Brothers
Theatre Program Production Manager
Theatre Production Lab
Kai Brothers is a production supervisor and consultant with more than 10 years’ experience in New York theatre. His credits include Barefoot in the Park at the Cort Theatre; Sweeney Todd at the Eugene O’Neil Theatre; Tony Award-winning The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Circle in the Square; Tony Award-winning Urinetown at the Henry Miller Theatre and the American Theater of Actors; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune at the Belasco Theatre; Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit at the Union Square Theatre (as well as the play’s national tour); Tick, Tick … Boom! at the Jane Street Theatre; The Last Five Years at the Minetta Lane Theatre; Necessary Targets at the Variety Arts Theatre; The Vagina Monologues in Los Angeles; The Play About the Baby at the Century Center Theatre; and The Laramie Project at the Union Square Theatre.
George Drance, SJ
Artist in Residence
Acting, Clown and Improvisation
Senior Values Seminar
Collaboration
George Drance has performed and directed in more than 20 countries on five continents, serving such companies as teatro la fragua in Honduras, and Theatre YETU in Kenya. He is currently the artistic director of the critically acclaimed Magis Theatre Company (magistheatre.org), praised for its skill and daring, and best known for its stage adaptations of C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce and Kalidasa’s Shakuntala and the Ring of Recognition. Other acting credits include La MaMa, ETC, The Metropolitan Opera, The Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival, American Repertory Theater, and Ralph Lee’s Mettawee River Company. As a resident artist in La MaMa’s Great Jones Repertory Company, he has toured throughout Europe and Asia with Andrei Serban’s Fragments of a Greek Trilogy and as a key collaborator on many of Ellen Stewart’s original pieces. He has been on the faculty of the Marist International Center in Nairobi, Kenya, and at Red Cloud High School on the Oglala Sioux Reservation. Film credits include The Light of Eons and Solidarity. He received his MFA in acting from Columbia University.
Carla Jackson
Theatre Program Administrator
In addition to producing the feature film A Swingin’ Trio, Carla Jackson is a seasoned marketing and public relations professional with more than 15 years of experience. Her expertise lies with her ability to create favorable business-to-consumer relationships for clients who have included New York’s August Wilson’s Jitney and King Hedley Austin’s Pro Arts Collective, Paradigm Shift, the ACC Center for Public Policy, Nike, the California Wellness Foundation, the California African American Museum, On Your Feet: International Music and Dance Festival, and the Hip Hop International Dance Championship. She received her BA in theater summa cum laude from Fordham University, and her MFA in theatre management from Yale University.
Daniel Alexander Jones
Head of Playwriting Program
Acting
Theatre History
Flying Solo
Young Gifted and Black
Daniel Alexander Jones is an award-winning performer, writer, and director. American Theatre Magazine named him “one of fifteen artists whose work will be transforming American stages for decades to come.” His work includes plays (Bel Canto, Earthbirths, Phoenix Fabrik), performance pieces (Blood:Shock:Boogie, The Book of Daniel, Cab and Lena) and devised work (Qualities of Light,Clayangels). With composer Bobby Halvorson, Jones has released three recordings, performed at Joe’s Pub and Symphony Space, and in the critically acclaimed show Jomama Jones* Radiate at Soho Rep. Jones holds degrees in Africana studies from Vassar College and in Theatre from Brown University’s Graduate School. He taught in MFA programs at the University of Texas at Austin and Goddard College. Jones is a Creative Capital grantee, a MAP Fund grantee, and a Howard Foundation Fellowship recipient. He’s an alumnus of New Dramatists, a Playwrights’ Center Core Member, and a Pillsbury House Theatre company member. He was a 2011-2012 Fellow at the Ellen Stone Belic in Chicago. He received the prestigious Alpert Award in the Arts for Theatre in 2006.
Elizabeth Margid
Head of Directing Program
Introduction to Directing
Page to Stage
Directing Production Workshop
Collaboration
In addition to the many productions she has directed at Fordham (favorites include The Good Person of Szechwan, Pericles, Better Living), Margid has directed a wide variety of classical, musical, and original work for the Yale Repertory Theatre, Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Hangar Theatre, Soho Rep, McCarter Theatre, NYU’s Musical Theatre Program, and New Dramatists, among other venues. She is the librettist of a music-theatre adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, which received a workshop at the Orlando Shakespeare Festival and a production by the Fordham Alumni Company with generous support from the Henson Foundation. A Visit From The Footbinder, a music-theatre work Margid conceived and directed, was developed by Goodspeed Opera, produced by Lincoln Center at the Arclight Theatre, and won the Jerry Bock New Musical Award. Margid received an MFA in directing from the Yale School of Drama, where she was awarded the John Badham Directing Fellowship. She is a two-time recipient of the New York State Council on the Arts’ Artistic Associate Grant.
Chad McArver
Lighting Design
Scenic Design
Collaboration
Chad McArver has designed lighting and scenery for Off-Broadway theatre in New York City and regional theatres on the East Coast. He has also designed lighting for theatre and dance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and at the LG Arts Center in Seoul, South Korea. On Broadway, he has worked with lighting designer Howell Binkley on The Best Man, Minnelli on Minnelli, Parade, and High Society. He has also worked with scenic designer Riccardo Hernandez on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Topdog/Underdogand Elaine Stritch at Liberty, both of which were directed by George C. Wolfe. McArver’s Off-Broadway credits include Wolfe’s production of Gypsy and the Yellow Canary at The Public Theater and Wynn Handman’s Spoke Man at The American Place Theatre. He earned his MFA in lighting and scenic design from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Dawn Akemi Saito
Artist-in-Residence
Movement and Acting
Dawn Akemi Saito is an actress/performance artist, writer, and Butoh performer whose multi-disciplinary works include: Knock on the Sky (Walker Art Center, Flynn Center for the Performing Arts) and A Face of Our Own (Orpheum Theater) in collaboration with composer Myra Melford and artist Michael Haberz; Blood Cherries directed by Jonathan Rosenberg and Sabrina Peck (Dance Theater Workshop); Mujyo with musician/composer Joseph Jarman; Red Eye (Whitney Museum); HALO (Highways); HA directed by Maria Mileaf (DTW, New York Theater Workshop); Pastime (La MaMa); DreamCatcher (DTW). Performances include: John Jesurun’s Stopped Bridge of Dreams; Dan Hurlin’s Hiroshima Maiden; Fiona Templeton’s Medead; Fred Ho and Ruth Margraff’s She Wolf; Roman Paska’s Arden/Ardennes; Bill T. Jones’ Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Ping Chong’s Deshima and Elephant Memories; Charles Mee’s My House Was Collapsing Toward One Side; The Road Home directed by Larry Sacharow; ‘Maid by Erik Ehn and directed by Maria Mileaf; and Photographs at S21 by Catherine Filloux. Saito has also collaborated with Robert Woodruff, JoAnne Akalaitis, and Yusef Komunyakaa. Saito’s HA was published in TCG’s Extreme Exposure.
Jenny Slattery
Associate Director of Theater
Jenny Slattery has a diverse background with over 15 years of professional experience as a stage manager and dramaturg in Broadway, non-profit and academic theatre. As a stage manager, Jenny spent over three years in the original company of Broadway’s Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. Other Broadway and Commercial credits include: Bullets Over Broadway, Guys & Dolls (2009), Grease, Oleanna, Cry-Baby and the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. Jenny’s additional credits include work with the La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, New Harmony Theatre, The Civilians, Seven Devils Playwrights Festival, Culture Clash, Guggenheim Works & Process, and numerous corporate events. Jenny has taught at SUNY Stonybrook, UCSD and UT Austin and been a special guest speaker at Princeton University, the University of Southern Indiana, and Susquehanna University. She received an MFA in Stage Management from the University of California, San Diego, an MA in Theatre History/Criticism from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in History from the University of Florida.
Shaun Suchan
Light and Sound Supervisor
Shaun holds an MFA in Lighting design from the University of Florida. Shaun’s recent credits include lighting designer for Measure for Measure on Fordham’s mainstage, as well as the 2013 summer season of Rocky Mountain Repertory Theatre in Grand Lake Colorado. Some of Shaun’s New York lighting designs include working with Orange Grove Dance, Ugly Rhino Productions, Neta Dance Company, and Theatre Rats.
Tim Zay
Theatre Program Technical Director
Stage Combat and Technical Theatre
A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, Tim Zay has worked as a master carpenter for Pace University on the Modular Globe Theatre Project and was scene shop foreman for Brooklyn Scenic on several projects, including Disney’s The Lion King, and various productions for the Roundabout and American Place Theatres. Zay has worked extensively in the New York Off-Broadway circuit, as well as in film and television. He has worked on numerous industrials for Lucent Technologies, IBM, and Mattel Toys, as well as window dressings/sets for Ralph Lauren.