Theatre and Dance at Pomona College

The Pomona College Theatre Department for the Claremont Colleges is combined administratively with the Pomona College Dance Program. This joint department offers courses in acting and stage movement; dance, choreography and movement analysis; theatre design and technology; theatre history and dramatic literature; stage and theatre management; playwriting, directing and dramaturgy. Productions are open by audition to students from all five of the undergraduate Claremont Colleges. The production season includes a range of theatre and dance, chosen from traditional masterpieces, contemporary theatre, non-western theatre forms, plays by women and persons of color, and faculty and student dance works. There is also a season of student productions sponsored by the Department’s student organization, Bottom Line Theatre. Visiting theatre professionals supplement the program on a regular basis as guest artists, teachers, and designers.

Betty Bernhard’s extensive directing experience covers a range of periods and styles including opera, Shakespeare, musical comedy, farce, devised plays, women and non-western playwrights, and contemporary drama. She regularly teaches all levels of acting, theatre for social change, feminist theatre, and history of dramatic theory. Her research in India includes the direction of productions in English and Malayalam in Cochin, Ahmedabad, Trichur, and Chennai. Bernhard’s educational videos, distributed by Insight Media in New York, include research on Bhavai, Mudras, Women Political Theatre Activists of India, and Casebooks on Sanskrit Theatre based on collaborative productions of The Little Clay Cart and Shakuntala at Pomona College with veteran theatre artists from India. An example of her work in Theatre of the Oppressed is “Keeping Chili Powder Out of Their Eyes,” Seagull Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 13, Spring, 1997, Calcutta, India. An essay “Directing Charles Mee’s Big Love in India” appears in Scott Cummings’ Remaking American Theatre, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Bernhard won two Fulbright Fellowships to teach and direct in India in 1993 and 2000. Other support includes I.R.E.X (Russia), Asian Cultural Council, and National Endowment for the Humanities. She is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences which this year include Theatre of the Oppressed in Nebraska, International Federation of Theatre Research in Korea, University of Calicut in Kerala, and Darpana Academy on Ahmedabad. Her sabbatical research will be in India documenting theatre for social justice with sex workers and their children in Mumbai.

Thomas Leabhart, specialist in Corporeal Mime, studied with Etienne Decroux in Paris from 1968-72, and since has taught, lectured and performed extensively in the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, South America and Asia. Author of Modern and Post-Modern Mime (Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press 1989, 1992), Etienne Decroux (Routledge 2007), and A Decroux Sourcebook (forthcoming, Routledge 2008) and 30 articles, he edits the internationally distributed Mime Journal. He was awarded fellowships from Fulbright, International Research and Exchanges Board, US Information Agency, California and Ohio Arts Councils, National Endowment for the Arts, Canada Council, and the French Ministry of Culture (DRAC Isle de France). In 2007 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATME). He is a member of the artistic staff of ISTA (International School of Theatre Anthropology) directed by Eugenio Barba, and teaches annually in Paris (Association Hippocampe), Lyon (Arts en Scene) and Aurillac (La Montade). He has directed Molière (The Learned Ladies, Scapin, The Misanthrope, The Miser); Sophocles (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone), Aesculus (Seven Against Thebes); Brecht (Mother Courage); and other plays at Pomona College.

Resident designer Sherry Linnell designs costumes, make-up, and teaches the core design course: Visual Arts for the Theatre. She also teaches Design Studio in Costume Design and Make-Up. In addition to her creative work with the College, she regularly designs for professional theatre companies throughout the Los Angeles area such as International City Theatre, Theatre 40, and Occidental Summer Theatre. Her design research has taken her to London and Moscow.

James Taylor teaches set and lighting design and designs departmental productions. A member of the United Scenic Artists of America, his many professional credits include designs for theatre, opera and dance. James is a longtime resident lighting designer at a Noise Within, a noted professional company located in Glendale, California. He is a former Fulbright Senior Lecturer at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines.

Art Horowitz heads the dramaturgy and playwriting emphases. He also teaches Theatre History and Shakespeare in Performance. Art serves as Literary Manager of Unknown Theater in Los Angeles where he recently worked as dramaturg on Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist and on Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life, a co-production of Unknown Theater and The Evidence Room. At Pomona, Art has directed productions of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia and Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen—staged in an old Physics Lecture Hall on campus. His writing on theatre and performance have appeared in several publications, including The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, Contemporary Dramatists and The Reference Guide to American Literature. Art wrote the entry “Drama” for the Encyclopedia of the Modern World, published by Oxford University Press. His book, Prospero’s True Preservers, an examination of Peter Brook, Giorgio Strehler, and Yukio Ninagawa’s productions of The Tempest was published by the University of Delaware Press.

The Pomona Dance Program provides a solid foundation in modern and ballet techniques as well as courses in composition, repertory, cultural styles, history, and Laban Movement Analysis. A core faculty of four, supplemented by renowned guest artists and lecturers, prepare students for careers in the performing arts and/or graduate study. Majors may elect an emphasis in Performance or Movement Studies. Participation in classes and concerts is open to students of all five colleges, regardless of their major.

Laurie Cameron, Artistic Director of the Dance Program, is a professional dancer and choreographer whose work has been performed throughout the United States and in Europe. A Laban trained Certified Movement Analyst who specializes in composition, she directs the choreography program at the renowned Folkwang Schule in Essen, Germany.