My greatest strength as a teacher is getting my students to jump before they think they’re ready, to ask bold questions, and to capture that wild work in their art and scholarship.

My teaching credo is this: waiting for permission or for the right moment, waiting until we know enough or think we deserve it--these delays insulate us from the failures we will learn from and protect us from the risks we must take.

I’ve won some awards in this arena, and I’ve been lucky enough to know quite a few great teachers who have shaped my approach. My pedagogy is informed by a blend of bell hooks and Paolo Friere and Liz Lerman alongside the pragmatics of Therese Huston and James Lang. Great teaching is founded on great course design, and I am committed to the intentional scaffolding and formative assessments that make it possible for the collegiate classroom to truly be a space for the “practice of freedom.”

I’m currently at work on a book project, with Dr. Elizabeth Wellman, that aims to put some of what I’ve learned into writing. Entitled The Bravest Choice: A Poetics of Courage for the Twenty First Century College Classroom, it posits the strategies of performance as particularly fruitful for inculcating intellectual, ethical, and creative courage in STEAM students.

I also regularly offer workshops in playwriting, adaptation, and devising to high schools, colleges, and professional organizations. Contact me for more information.

Classes