School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 1-10 of 113 Results
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Rotimi Agbabiaka
Lecturer
BioRotimi Agbabiaka is an actor, director, writer, corporate coach, and teacher of acting, solo performance, and theatre-making. Most recently, Rotimi played the EmCee in Cabaret (Center Repertory Company), Hook in Peter Pan (Panto In The Presidio), Oberon and Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Folger Theatre, Washington D.C.), and Cellphone/Narrator in If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhf*cka (Playwrights Horizons, Off-Broadway).
Other acting credits include roles at Yale Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, Marin Theatre Company, Shotgun Players, and TheatreWorks. Rotimi is a company member of Word for Word, Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience (BACCE), the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe; and is a resident artist at Brava Theater Center and the Magic Theatre.
Rotimi most recently directed The Tempest (San Francisco Shakespeare Festival), The Red Shades: A Trans Superhero Rock Opera (Z Space); and assistant directed the opera Harvey Milk Reimagined (Opera Parallèle).
As a playwright, Rotimi penned and toured the solo shows Homeless, Type/Caste (Theatre Bay Area award), and MANIFESTO; the musical, Seeing Red—co-written with Joan Holden and Ira Marlowe and produced by the San Francisco Mime Troupe; and workshopped a new play, The Soul Never Dwells In A Dry Place, inspired by the art of Romare Bearden, at Cutting Ball Theater in 2024.
Rotimi has taught acting, movement, and play creation at the Yale School of Drama, Middlebury College, Bennington College, Southern Illinois University, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and American Conservatory Theatre, among others. Rotimi trained at the Moscow Art Theatre, received an MFA in Acting from Northern Illinois University, and has presented work at museums (the deYoung), in parks (with We Players), on street corners (with Jess Curtis’s GRAVITY), and on nightlife stages around the world (as alter ego Miss Cleo Patois). -
Marlon Ariyasinghe
Ph.D. Student in Theater and Performance Studies, admitted Autumn 2023
Ph.D. Minor, Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity
Ph.D. Minor, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Grad Writing Tutor, Hume CenterBioMarlon Ariyasinghe (he/him) is a writer, editor, theatre practitioner and researcher from Sri Lanka. He is a master’s graduate in English from the University of Geneva and received his BA (honors) in English from the University of Peradeniya. He was the co-editor of Mise en Abyme: International Journal of Comparative Literature and Arts (VIII, Issue 2), a special edition on Sri Lankan Combative Art, Angampora. He was the Senior Assistant Editor at Himal Southasian, a regional magazine of politics and culture. He served as the secretary of the Sri Lanka Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies and has organized multiple international literary conferences from 2010-2023.
His rapportage has been featured in Reuters, DW, BBC World, WION, The Washington Post, NPR, and other outlets worldwide. Marlon has directed plays for Emmet Theatre Company in Geneva and published a collection of poetry Froteztology in 2011. Marlon’s research interests include Southasian theatre and historiography, performing blackness, Southasian antiblackness, cognition and performance, theatre pedagogy, and decolonizing actor-training methodologies. His research has been published in The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Theatre Research International, Mise en Abyme: International Journal of Comparative Literature and Arts, and Phoenix: Sri Lanka Journal of English in the Commonwealth.
Selected directing credits include: Exorcism (2025), Twelfth Night (2019), The Clean House (2015), Antigonick (2014), and Rizana (2013).
He tweets at @MarlonAriy
https://marlonariyasinghe.com/ -
Nina Ball
Lecturer
BioNina Ball (she/ her) is an award winning scenic designer whose professional work has been seen at American Conservatory Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, California Shakespeare Theater, Shotgun Players, San Francisco Playhouse, Marin Theatre Company, Aurora Theatre Company, Center Repertory Theatre, UC Berkeley TDPS, TheatreFIRST, The Cutting Ball Theater, San Jose Repertory Theatre, San Francisco Mime Troupe, and Z Space, among many others. She has been a company member at Shotgun Players in Berkeley since 2009 as well as TheatreFIRST (also in Berkeley) since 2018.
Recent awards include a Theatre Bay Area award for "The Nether" at San Francisco Playhouse; San Francisco Bay Area Critic Circle awards for her designs of "My Fair Lady" at San Francisco Playhouse and "Metamorphosis" at the Aurora; a Shellie award for "Mirandolina" at Center REP; a Broadway World San Francisco Award for "Care of Trees" at Shotgun Players and an Arty Award for her design of "Eurydice" at Solano College Theatre. In addition to theatre, Ms. Ball is also a production designer and has worked on numerous film, TV and commercial productions locally and in LA.
Ms. Ball holds a bachelor degree in biology with an emphasis in marine ecology from UC Santa Cruz and studied visual art and photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City. She received her masters degree in scenic design with a costume design secondary from San Francisco State University.
She is also a lecturer at UC Berkeley where she teaches Design for Performance in the Theatre Dance and Performance Studies department.
Ms. Ball is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829.
ninaball.com -
Becky Bodurtha
Senior Lecturer of Theater and Performance Studies
BioBecky Bodurtha is a professional costume designer with regional, international and New York City credits. Recent credits include Drowing in Cairo (Potrero Stage), Felix Starro (Theatre Ma-Yi), Open (The Tank), 1000 Nights and One Day (Prospect Theatre Company), and Mr. Burns (NYU Gallatin). Other credits: Constellations (Wilma), The Strangest (East 4th Street), Among the Dead (Theatre Ma-Yi) Passover (Cherry Lane), The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra, Go! (Theatre Ma-Yi), Livin’ La Vida Imelda (Theatre Ma-Yi), and This Lingering Life (HERE Arts). International credits include Anna in the Tropics (Repertory Philippines), Movement for Humanity and Africa’s Hope for the Ubumuntu Festival in Kigali, Rwanda. Becky is the resident costume designer for Vermont Shakespeare Festival where she recently designed Taming of the Shrew and Julius Caesar. She has served as an assistant costume designer on Broadway as well as on feature film.
Alongside her professional design work, Ms. Bodurtha has been an educator with 15 years of experience in teaching the new generation collaborative design and theatre making.
She received her MFA in Theatre Design from University of Iowa. Please visit her website at: www.beckybodurtha.com
