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The Shakespeare Sedona Institute 2009 Faculty Line-Up announcement coming soon. Each year faculty members from the heart of the theatre community join our institute and are all nationally recognized.

Past faculty have included...

John Basil (Folio Text) 
Director, Teacher, Artistic Director of the American Globe Theatre in New York City. Teaches the study of Shakespeare Text using the First Folio as developed by Patrick Tucker.

Karen Beaumont

(Movement / Clown)

Director of the Theatre Program at Simon’s Rock since 1989.Studied with Shakespeare & Company and continued studies in NYC. Karen has apprenticed with Trish Arnold.

Dan Cordle (Improvisation) 
Teaches Improvisation techniques as developed by Paul Walker for NYU’s Graduate Acting Program, has acted at theatres across the US, as well as in television and film.

Linda Gates has taught voice/speech/text/dialects at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Yale School of Drama, Central School of Speech and Drama in London, The University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, The Hochschule fer Musik und Theatre in Hamburg, Germany as well as BADA for many years. She has also worked as a voice and dialect coach for the theatre, both on and off-Broadway, regional theatre and in Europe. In Chicago her vocal coaching theatre credits include: Steppenwolf Theatre Company for Betrayal featuring Tracy Letts, the Pulitzer Prize author of August: Osage County and Lost Lands with John Malkevich; The Goodman Theatre: Passion Play directed by Mark Wing Davey, Shining City, Oedipus Complex, Pericles, Chicago Shakespeare: Loves Labors Lost; Remy Bumppo, Lookingglass, Marriott Lincolnshire, Writers Theatre, The Court Theatre, Victory Gardens. She has also worked extensively in opera and was the English Diction coach for The Metropolitan opera’s world premiere of The First Emperor starring Placido Domingo and The Magic Flute directed by Julie Taymor, as well as numerous productions at The Lyric Opera of Chicago. For Chicago Opera Theatre she coached the spoken Shakespeare text for Beatrice and Benedict. Broadway credits include Macbeth (Nicole Williamson), The Bacchae directed by Michaael Cacoyannis, John Gabriel Borkman, Heartbreak House with Rex Harrison, Rosemary Harris. Regional theatre credits include: Yale Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park Stratford Festival Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Linda is currently Head of Voice and Speech in the Department of Theatre at Northwestern University and is the author of Voice for Performance published by Applause Books.

Deborah Hecht (Speech) 
Head of Voice and Speech for the Graduate Acting Program at New York University, has also taught at the Juilliard School, the American Conservatory Theatre, Yale School of Drama, UNC/Chapel Hill, Circle-In-The-Square, SUNY, and coached many Broadway shows including Titanic, Little Foxes, The King and I, Love,Valour, Compassion!, The Tempest, and Angels In America.

Sarah Hickler (Movement, Institute Co-Director) has been training actors and theater educators for over 20 years in university programs such as Boston Conservatory, Boston University, Brandeis University, and numerous professional training programs. She is on the faculty and Head of Movement Training at Emerson College in Boston, and on the faculty in the professional training programs at Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox, MA, where she performed for twelve seasons with DibbleDance Theater. She has been choreographer/movement director on over 40 professional and university theater productions in New York, Boston and Los Angeles, and directed productions for Sedona, Los Angeles Women's and Sun Valley Shakespeare
Companies.

Barry Kraft (Folio Text/ Verse) 
Resident Dramaturg at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, as an actor he ahs performed in the complete canon of Shakespeare’s work. He has also acted at many regional theatres throughout the U.S. and taught at UC Santa Cruz, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the American Conservatory Theatre, Southern Methodist University, UCLA, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Greg Leaming (Text)

Formerly the Director of Artistic Programming for The Long Wharf Theatre, Producing Director for the Hartford Stage Company, and Artistic Director of Portland Stage. Currently the director of the Asolo Theatre Conservatory. Freelance director at theatres around the U.S.

Virginia Ness (Acting/Voice) 
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, taught at the Yale School of Drama, American Conservatory Theatre, and Shakespeare and Company.

Patrick Page (Text/ Acting) Formerly starring on Broadway in Beauty and the Beast, and currently starring on Broadway in The Lion King, leading actor with the Utah, Alabama, and Oregon Shakespeare Festivals, as well as Founding Associate Artist with Shakespeare Sedona. Has taught workshops in Shakespeare text around the U.S.

Jared Sakren (Acting/ Masks) 
Founding Artistic Director of Shakespeare Sedona and Artistic Director of Southwest Shakespeare Company. Acted and directed thoughout the U.S., Mr. Sakren has taught at the Yale School of Drama, the Juilliard School, New York University Graduate Acting Program, the American Conservatory Theatre, UNC/Chapel Hill, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and in England and Australia. He has also performed on Broadway and at regional theatres.

Giovanna Sardelli (Improvisation) 
Giovanna teaches and directs from her base in New York City where she has directed George C. Wolfe, John Guare, Sam Waterson, and others in “A Celebration of the Arts” at Cooper Union, and assisted Mark-Wing Davey on the world premiere of a new Brighe Mullin play. She was a producing member of A-1 Collaborators, is a member of the Lark Theatre Company and has directed for NYU’s Graduate Acting Program. She studied with the Master Games Teacher Paul Walker, and has an MFA in acting from NYU.

Susan Sweeney (Voice/ Speech) Head of Voice and Speech at the Professional Theatre Training Program of the University of Delaware. Studied under Edith Skinner and with Roy Hart Theatre Company. Has coached for, among others, the Illinois, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon Shakespeare Festivals.

Robert Taylor (Voice)
Former member of Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company, has taught voice for the Professional Theatre Training Program a the University of Delaware, the Moscow Art Theatre, Carnegie-Mellon, and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

J.Steven White (Combat)
Currently a faculty member at the NYU / Graduate Acting Program. Mr. White has taught at the American Conservatory Theatre, and has been fight choreographer for numerous New York productions including at the Roundabout Theatre Company and the New York
Shakespeare Festival.

Lisa Wolpe (Text/ Director) 
Founder and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company. Performed at Berkely Rep, Arizona Theatre Company, San Diego Rep, Shakespeare & Company, The Edinburgh Festival, and in N.Y., Off and Off-Off Broadway