Megan Burnett, B.S., M.F.A.
Associate Professor
Megan holds a Bachelor of Science in Radio-TV-Film Production from Texas Christian University, and a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre from the University of Louisville. She received graduate theatre training at Oklahoma City University, working under famed opera and music theatre director Carveth Osterhaus before moving to Louisville and receiving her MFA in 1991. Megan was an English Speaking Union Teacher Scholar, taking the “Teaching Shakespeare through Performance” course at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London in 2004. She served as a Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund participant 2005, studying Kabuki, Noh and Bunraku as well as Japanese education practices in Tokyo and Hiroshima. Megan co-founded a theatre training school for adults: StageLab: Ongoing Training for Theatre Artists, and she was a co-founder and board member of The Pleiades Theatre Company. Ms Burnett received the Alice Lloyd College Campus Leadership and Excellence in Teaching Award in 2012. She is a 2014 recipient of a Post-Doctoral Faculty Fellowship from the Appalachian College Association.
Megan has worked in all aspects of radio, video production, film and theatre. She produced three radio drama productions for WMMT, a division of Appalshop and WWJD, Alice Lloyd College’s radio station. She directs for Jenny Wiley Theatre and serves on their board of directors. She works as a Voice and Text coach for area Shakespeare companies. She was a Narrator at the American Printing House for the Blind for several years. She has acted for professional theatre companies in Kentucky, Indiana, Florida, Texas and Oklahoma, and she also performs in her nationally touring production of a one-woman show, Shame the Devil! An Audience with Fanny Kemble.
Megan’s research interests include women in theatre, children’s theatre, Teaching Shakespeare through Performance, Kabuki theatre, and researching women to create plays about them. Right now she is researching Mattie Griffith Browne, a Kentucky Abolitionist and Suffragist with the goal of presenting a one-woman play about her in 2016. Megan is on the Speaker’s Bureau for the Kentucky Humanities Council and has given talks about Mattie Griffith Browne, as well as the Women of the Settlement Schools of Eastern Kentucky. Megan has presented papers and panels at the Southeastern Theatre Conference, Ohio Valley History Conference: Mattie Griffith Browne, Kentucky Abolitionist, Women of the Settlement Schools of Eastern Kentucky, JFK and the Power of Speech, Kentucky Theatre Association, and the Shakespeare in Contemporary Performance Symposium at Appalachian State University: 2014 ALC’s Caudill Players: A Model for Performing Shakespeare in Appalachia.
Most recently Megan published, produced and directed the play Alice Lloyd College: A Light Unto the Mountains. This was a devised script based on oral archives at ALC. National premiere in Washington, D.C. in 2013. Performed there and in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, North Carolina.
Dr. Zackary Ross
Associate Professor | Media, Communication, and Fine Arts Division Chair | Honors Program Director
Dr. Zackary Ross has a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a master’s degree in Educational Theatre from New York University, and is an honors graduate of Lewis and Clark College’s theatre department in Portland, Oregon.
In addition to his experience as an educator, Zack is an active theatre artist. As a director, his most recent productions include Asking Strangers the Meaning of Life, Commedie of Errors, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Blithe Spirit, and 44 Plays for 44 Presidents. As and actor, he has appeared most recently in Frederick Knott's Wait Until Dark, The Neo-futurists Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, Christopher Durang's The Actor’s Nightmare, and Wendy Kesselman's adaptation of The Dairy of Anne Frank. His dramaturgy credits include The Illusion freely adapted from Pierre Corneille’s L’Illusion Comique by Tony Kushner, Iphigenia and Other Daughters by Ellen McLaughlin, and Buried Child by Sam Shepard.
Zack's research interests include theatrical adaptation, contemporary drama, theatre and social change, early modern drama, and trauma studies. Recently, Zack published a chapter entitled “Too Much Memory: Interrogating the National Trauma of the War on Terror” in Reflecting 9/11: New Narratives of Crisis, Disaster and Change (2016).
Karole Spangler
During her Theatre practitioner career Karole has acted in, directed, or stage-managed over 120 productions in 15 states, including Alaska. She holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and is a member of Actor’s Equity Association, American Theatre in Higher Education, and the Voice And Speech Trainers Association.
As an educator, Karole has taught classes in Theatre, Acting, Voice for the Actor, and Acting for the Camera at four universities, including Bellarmine, and two accredited colleges. Most recently she served for more than two years as a lecturer in Theatre at EKU. Locally, she has lectured at JCTC, taught after-school & summer programs for YPAS, Actor’s Theatre, Stage One, & Looking for Lilith, and performed with Kentucky Shakespeare, Stage One, Looking for Lilith, & just about every other Theatre group in town over the years.
She considers herself wildly blessed in these experiences and in the amazing people she’s met along the way. Karole is proud to join the Bellarmine Theatre Department faculty and already in love with the jewel of a campus we all enjoy here. Go Knights!
Takayla Williams
B.F.A, Theatre Arts, Clark Atlanta University; M.F.A, Acting, University of Louisville
Scholarly Interests: Actor Training and Methodology, Directing, On-Camera Acting and Directing, Playwriting and Screenwriting, Mask Work, Stage Combat, Medieval Script adaptation.
Takayla has had the privilege of participating in Horizon Theatre’s Young Playwrights’ Festival as well as The National Black Theatre Festival’s Collegiate Playwrights competition. She has also worked with Atlanta Street Theatre, in Atlanta, GA, performing in their play, Little Boy Blue. She has directed plays at Clark Atlanta University, such as, Go Ask Alice and The Stoop to name a few. She also staged managed Topdog/Underdog. She remounted The Stoop at the University of Louisville and premiered her play Where Do We Go From Here.