Conversation Series Dates for 2011-2012
Last season over 1,300 audience members deepened their engagement with a play by attending our Conversation Series. We hope you will consider joining us this year for these free post-show forums.
August: Osage County
Spencer Theatre
Meet the Creative Team - Wednesday, Sept. 21 following the 7pm performance
Scholars’ Forum - Saturday, Oct. 1 following the 2pm performance
Doug Weaver is the Director of Arts at Bishop Seabury Academy in Lawrence, Kansas. He spent 10 years teaching theatre at KU, before moving over to Seabury. He is a Phoenix Award winner for Excellence in the Performing Arts and was the Ethel Hinds Birch teacher while at KU. He is the Director for the first and second EARTH (Equity Actors Readers Theatre) series, working with August: Osage County cast member Kip Niven. He is also a founding member of the Kansas Theatre Project. He earned his undergraduate degree in theatre from the University of Kansas and his MA from Michigan State University. A director/actor/playwright/fight choreographer and teacher, he has spent his life in the theatre. He is married to August: Osage County cast member Cheryl Weaver.
Actors’ Forum - Tuesday, Oct. 4 following the 7pm performance
The History of Kisses
Copaken Stage
Meet the Creative Team - Wednesday, Oct. 26 following the 7pm performance
Scholars’ Forum - Saturday, Nov. 5 following the 2pm performance
Actors’ Forum - Sunday, Nov. 6 following the 2pm performance
Actors’ Forum - Tuesday, Nov. 8 following the 7pm performance
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Spencer Theatre
Meet the Creative Team - Wednesday, Jan. 25 following the 7pm performance
Scholars’ Forum - Saturday, Feb. 4 following the 2pm performance
Susan K. Harris is the Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Kansas. She is a specialist in American literature and culture of the 19th Century, with special focus on Mark Twain. Additionally, she teaches and writes about American women writers, 19th & 20th-century immigrant writing, and issues of national identity, citizenship, religion, & race. Special awards include a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1992-93, the Henry Nash Smith Award for scholars in Mark Twain Studies in 2005, the KU English department’s Mabel S. Frye Award for graduate teaching in 2006, and a Mortarboard Society Outstanding Teacher Award in 2011. Her writings include the monographs Mark Twain’s Escape from Time: A study of Patterns and Images and The Courtship of Olivia Langdon and Mark Twain. This past year she published God’s Arbiters: Americans and the Philippines, 1898-1902—a book that uses Mark Twain’s political writings to frame an examination of the debates over whether or not the U.S. should annex the Philippines. She has edited the Library of America’s volume of Twain’s historical romances and a Houghton Mifflin Edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as well as contributed articles and chapters on Twain to numerous publications and text books.
Dr. Harris earned her BA from Antioch College, MA from Stanford University, and her Ph.D. from Cornell University. She has previously taught at the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Quarry Farm, in Elmira, NY; at the Pennsylvania State University, and at Queens College of the City University of New York. She joined the English department faculty at KU in 2002.
Actors’ Forum - Sunday, Feb. 5 following the 2pm performance
Actors’ Forum - Tuesday, Feb. 7 following the 7pm performance
The Great Immensity
Copaken Stage
Meet the Creative Team - Wednesday, Feb. 22 following the 7pm performance
Scholars’ Forum - Saturday, Mar. 3 following the 2pm performance
Actors’ Forum - Sunday, Mar. 4 following the 2pm performance
Actors’ Forum - Tuesday, March 6 following the 7pm performance
The Whipping Man
Spencer Theatre
Meet the Creative Team - Wednesday, Mar. 21 following the 7pm performance
Scholars’ Forum - Saturday, Mar. 31 following the 2pm performance
Actors’ Forum - Sunday, Apr. 1 following the 2pm performance
Actors’ Forum - Tuesday, Apr. 3 following the 7pm performance
Little Shop of Horrors
Copaken Stage
Meet the Creative Team - Wednesday, Apr. 25 following the 7pm performance
Scholars’ Forum - Saturday, May 5 following the 2pm performance
Actors’ Forum - Sunday, May 6 following the 2pm performance
Actors’ Forum - Tuesday, May 8 following the 7pm performance