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Elementary and Middle School Program Instructor Bio

DAWN LOVELAND is the Director of Education here at Playhouse on Park.  Dawn currently teaches Creative Dramatics through the Bridge Family Center.  She taught musical theatre through the Surflight Theatre STARS program, instructed music and arts programs for Simsbury Department of Continuing Education, and was a counselor at Camp Acting Manitou (overnight camp in Maine).  Dawn directed IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE for young audiences (Playhouse on Park) and was the stage manager and a performer with Surflight To-Go (educational touring theatre for children).  She directed students in HOMEROOM (Playhouse on Park), THE LITTLE MERMAID (Surflight Theatre), co-directed Middleground Children’s Theatre (Middlebury, VT) and choreographed for students (Middlebury College Musical Players, The Company Summer at Hartt School, Henry James Memorial School, Simsbury High School).  Dawn is a graduate of Middlebury College with a BA in theatre, focused on directing.

High School College Preparatory Acting Program Insructor Bio

Coming Soon

Conservatory: Professional Training Program Instructor Bios

ROBERT H. DAVIS is Professor of Acting and Voice & Speech at The Hartt School Theatre Division at the University of Hartford. As a professional actor and vocal coach, he has worked in New York and at regional theatres across the country. At the Hartford Stage Company he regularly appears in A CHRISTMAS CAROL as Bob Cratchit and shared the role of the Stage Manager in OUR TOWN with Hal Holbrook. He received a Connecticut Critics Circle Award for his performance in THE EXPONERATED at TheatreWorks of Hartford and has served as voice and dialect coach at Yale Repertory Theatre and for Hartford Stage Company’s recent productions of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER. This past year he directed EQUUS here at Playhouse on Park. Once upon a time he was seen on television’s Sesame Street. Bob is a Designated Linklater Voice teacher and has served as a teaching artist for Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts and for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut. He has also offered classes and workshops in Linklater Voice at Trinity College and Wesleyan University. For several years he has been a master teacher for the National Endowment for the Humanities’ National Institute on Teaching Shakespeare held at Smith College.

TOM RIDGELY is a co-founder and Artistic Director of Waterwell, with which he has created more than a dozen new works for the theater. He also directed WATERWELL'S #9, THE|KING|OPERETTA, and MARCO MILLIONS (BASED ON LIES) [Drama Desk Nom], among others. He has taught master classes in Devising at Perry-Mansfield, the Orchard Project, James Madison University and Indiana University. With Waterwell he also works in partnership with the Professional Performing Arts School (PPAS) in Manhattan to deliver conservatory-style theatre training to exceptionally talented 6-12th graders.

DAVID WATSON is an Associate Professor of Acting, Mask, and Voice & Speech at the Hartt School – the University of Hartford’s Conservatory of Performing Arts.  He is a director, actor, teacher, mask maker and active in the professional theatre for over thirty-five years. Teacher of acting, voice, mask, and mime for twenty years. His most recent professional directing credits include: BURN THIS (Flight Theater, Los Angeles), ROMEO AND JULIET (Connecticut Shakespeare Festival, West Hartford), THE SPITFIRE GRILL (The Majestic Theatre, Springfield.) Hartt directing credits include: THE GLORIOUS ONES, WAITING FOR GODOT, BIG LOVE, THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE, THE TEMPEST, THE CRUCIBLE, A NEW BRAIN, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO'S NEST, SUBURBIA, and AMERICAN BUFFALO. New York acting credits include: A NIGHT OF PITY, PVT. WARS, and The Doctors (NBC). Hartford Stage credits include: A CHRISTMAS CAROL, RICHARD III, THE GREEKS, KEAN, and ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. He has studied Lecoq style mask acting and Commedia style acting with Arne Zaslove, Andy Hepburn, and David Gaines; Mime with Tony Montanaro; and Circus Skills with Hovey Burgess. Most recently taught mask acting and mask making in Sligo, Ireland; Commedia dell’Arte in Nocciano, Italy; and at Interlochen. He has taught Mask, Commedia dell’ Arte style acting, designed masks, directed Commedia productions, and served as Commedia production consultant at: Hartford Stage, Connecticut Shakespeare Festival, New World Theatre, Daedalus Company, Capital Classics, University of North Carolina, Indiana State University, Hofstra University, Trinity College, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Springfield College, and University of Hartford, Taft School, Walnut Hill School, and Watkinson School. He is a founding member of the Zanni Street Theatre, a traveling Commedia Company, which toured the mid-Atlantic and Northeast from 1975 to 1978 when it became the City of Boston’s official Commedia Company.

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