Rob is an award-winning actor, author, director, educator and playwright. He is a Professor at Michigan State University where he serves as the Head of Acting and Directing in the Department of Theatre. His publications include books (Inner Monologue in Acting, Roadblocks in Acting, Collaboration in Theatre: A Practical Guide for Designers and Directors– with Kirk Domer– all published by Palgrave Macmillan) plays (The Summer Circle; Brooklyn Publishers, Arts or Crafts; Norman Maine Plays, Comfort Food; Original Work Publishing and The Tail of Peter Rabbit; Big Dog Publishing) and articles including an article in Theatre Topics. He worked as the National Outreach Education Coordinator for Actors’ Equity Association and has appeared extensively throughout the U.S. as actor and director in New York, Los Angeles and regionally at Goodspeed Musicals, Long Wharf Theatre and Pittsburgh Public Theatre. He has directed internationally in Dubai, Colombia and Greece where he was a Fulbright Fellow. Rob served on the faculty of Marymount Manhattan College, the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, SUNY/Stony Brook and Stephens College where he received the “Distinguished Teaching Award.” At MSU, he was awarded the “Mid-Michigan Alumni Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching” and the “Michigan Professor of the Year” from the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan.
Project:
My Lilly Project concentrates on the research methods, rehearsal best practices, and student learning related to is an immersive theatre project to be presented March 2018 in the MSU Auditorium. This production is the Department of Theatre’s first experiment in the current trend of immersive and site-specific theatre and my Lilly Fellowship would be spent researching immersive theatre creation, rehearsal and performance strategies, interviewing current immersive theatre professionals and the professional viewing of immersive theatre productions.
Immersive Theatre has recently begun to explode on the theatre scene. It is theatre beyond the traditional confines of a stage space and happens within, around and on top of audience members who follow the play through guided and unguided interactions between audience and performer. The engaged learning within the project is self-evident as students and audience will experience (to most) a new form of theatrical expression that examines the boundaries of traditional theatre practice. This new type of theatre-making also moves the department along in its mission to provide contemporary context to its students and audiences. The ambition of such an undertaking also seems clear when working on a production so expansive. I imagine three undergraduate collaborators/ research assistants will assist me in the convoluted rehearsal process.
The show itself is a world premiere that is set at a fictional southern university in 1958 where a progressive director has cast a black Romeo and a white Juliet. The show deals with issues of segregation, bullying, racism homophobia and more as the audiences, actors and designers enter this charged political environment.