Mark K. Varns (Chair) Professor Varns holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre Design and Technology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Mark has worked with a number of university, regional, and summer stock theatres, including Alabama Shakespeare Festival, McLeod Summer Playhouse, Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, Sacramento Theatre Company, Central Missouri Rep, Utah Shakespearean Festival, Missouri Repertory Theatre, New Harmony Theater, Millikin University and, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Contact Information
Office: Communications Building, Department Office
Phone number: 453 5741 
Email: varns@siu.edu

Anne Fletcher (Assistant Professor) Anne teaches courses in Theatre History including an undergraduate survey course and graduate classes in American Political Theatre and Contemporary Developments. She received her Ph.D. from Tufts University where her dissertation was on Group Theatre designer Mordecai Gorelik. She followed adjunct teaching in Boston and a voyage teaching for Semester at Sea with several years at Winthrop University in South Carolina. Her work has appeared in The New England Theatre Journal, Theatre Journal, and Theatre Symposium. She has presented at ATHE, ASTR, the SETC Theatre History Symposium and other professional conferences.

Contact Information
Office: Communications Building, Room 0034 
Phone number: 453 7594 
Email: afletch@siu.edu

Robert Holcombe (Assistant Professor, Technical Director) Professor Holcombe holds a B.F.A. in Theater from Northwest Missouri State University, and an M.F.A. in Technical Direction from Ohio University. For the last three years Bob has spent his summers at Glimmerglass Opera where he has performed the duties of Scene Shop Supervisor and Assistant Technical Director. Most recently Bob has continued his relationship with the Vitalist Theater Company in Chicago by completed a technical direction position for their productions of King Lear and The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol. Bob has also been the Technical Director at McLeod Summer Playhouse for both the 1998 and 1999 for productions such as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Most Happy Fella and Forever Plaid. Previous to joining Southern Illinois University faculty, Bob had worked at Northern Kentucky University as the Assistant Technical Director/ Scene Shop Supervisor during the 1999-2000 academic year, as well as the Technical Director for their Summer Dinner Theater in the summer of 2000.

Contact Information
Office: Communications Building, Room 2234 
Phone number: 453 7593 
Email: holcombe@siu.edu

Lori Merrill-Fink (Associate Professor, Director of Outreach and Development) is a member of the Association of Theater Movement Educators and a student of Subtle Energy Work for Actors; her professional credits include directing and choreography for the Clinton Area Showboat, the Williamstown Theater Festival, and studying acting with Uta Hagen.

Contact Information
Office: Communications Building, Room 2236 
Phone number: 453 7591 
Email: lomerfi@siu.edu

Ronald Naversen (Associate Professor of Scenic Design) Ron, Head of Design and Production is a member of United Scenic Artists (USA), the United States Institute for Theater Technology (USITT), and the Southeastern Theater Conference (SETC). While teaching and designing full time at SIUC, Ron also maintains a freelance career designing for university and professional theaters including the Vitalist Theater of Chicago, the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, the Nebraska Repertory Theater, the New Harmony Theater, Milliken University, Wichita State University and Northwest Louisiana State University. Ron has traveled and studied theater in Romania, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Great Britain, Japan, and most recently Bali where he learned traditional mask carving and shadow puppetry. Ron has been studying and collecting masks from all over the world and is in the process of developing an international and interdisciplinary mask exhibition and conference at SIUC in 2005. His design portfolio is available on his website http://mypage.siu.edu/rnav/

Click here to see Ron's website with production photos.  

Contact Information
Office: Communications Building, Room 2230 
Phone number: 453 3076 
Email: rnav@siu.edu

Segun Ojewuyi (Assistant Professor) Professor Ojewuyi teaches Directing and Acting. His other teaching interests are in African, African American Theater. Over a 20 year international directing career, he has worked in major theaters in Europe, the United States and Africa. Some of his numerous directing credits include Shakespeare's King Lear, Sophocles' Oedipus; Death and The King's Horseman and The Road by Wole Soyinka, Becket's Waiting for Godot, Leon Elder's Ceremonies in Dark old Men' and The exception and The Rule by Brecht. He has served as visiting Director at the Birmingham Repertory Theater and Liverpool Playhouse in England, worked at the Syracuse stage, the Yale repertory; the Pittsburg Public Theater where he assisted Marion McClinton on the world premier of King Hedley II by August Wilson and toured productions to the Bauhaus and Mozart Hall in Germany. He has taught at the University of Lagos, Nigeria; the Yale University undergraduate Theater studies, the Yale Special Summer acting program and at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. Professor Ojewuyi has been a recipient of the Commonwealth Fellowship, a Ford Foundation/Arts International Professional Development grant, the Horowitz Foundation Fellowship and the Rowan University Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Recognition Award - 2000 and 2001. A Fellow of the Salzburg Seminar, he has published in peer reviewed journals such as Performance Research, the Yale Theater Journal and The Glendora Review of African Arts and Letters. He holds an MA in Theater Arts - Criticism from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and an MFA in Directing from Yale University. A member of the Black Theater Network, ATHE, the Actors Equity and the National Association of Nigerian Theater Arts Practitioners, he has also acted and directed for Television and Radio.

Contact Information
Office: Communications Building, Room 2211 
Phone number: 453 1893 
Email: Segun Ojewuyi

David Rush (Associate Professor, Head of Playwriting) Dr. Rush has been an active playwright for over 20 years. Productions of his plays have been given by Mark Taper Forum, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights' Horizons, Stage Left, Chicago Dramatists, Organic Theater, Center Stage, Raven Theatre and others. His play The Prophet of Bishop Hill, produced by Chicago Dramatists, was nominated for a Jeff Award, and his Civil War Drama, Leander Stillwell was given a Jeff-Award-Winning production by Stage Left Theatre; its production in Los Angeles was voted one of the Los Angeles Times' 10 Best of the Year, and the script received a Drama-Logue award for Excellence in Writing. He has also won Jeff and After Dark Awards for his play Police Deaf Near Far. He wrote the lyrics for Prairie Lights a recent hit in Chicago and scheduled for several productions next year. He has also received Chicago Emmys for several projects he worked on as story editor for "The Magic Door Television Theater." He has been named as "Playwriting Teacher of the Year" by the Association for Theater in Higher Education and "Outstanding Artist" by Phi Kappa Phi. His textbook, A STUDENT GUIDE TO PLAY ANALYSIS, is published by SIUC Press.

Contact Information
Office: Communications Building, Room 2238 
Phone number: 453 5747 
Email: darush@siu.edu

Kathryn Wagner (Assistant Professor) Costume Design, holds a BFA from the Goodman School of Drama and an MFA from Rutgers University. Kathryn has designed for Peninsula Players, Meadow Brook Theatre, Sullivan's Little Theater on The Square, and recently designed The Glass Menagerie for the University of Illinois SummerFest. Prior to coming to the Midwest, her work was seen in many New York area theatres, including McCarter Theatre, Lamb's Theatre Co., and the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival. Kathryn also worked for several costume companies building puppets and various large mascot costumes. Ms. Wagner is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829.

Contact Information
Office: Communications Building, Room 2238 
Phone number: 453 7584 
Email: Kathryn Wagner

Susan Patrick Benson (Voice and Speech) has performed at various venues in NYC including Ensemble Studio Theatre, Currican Theatre, HB Playwright's Foundation, LaMaMaETC as well as annual appearances in the legendary Rev. Al Carmines' Christmas Rappings.  Regional theater work includes  Luna Stage (Fastest Woman Alive) The Cleveland Play House (The Man Who Came to Dinner, Animal Farm), Karamu Theatre, Porthouse Theater (Inherit the Wind, Much Ado About Nothing), Strand Theatre in Galveston, Stamford Theater Works (A Coupla White Chicks.), The Public Theater of Maine (An Italian-American Reconciliation) , and  TheaterWorks of Hartford where she appeared in How I Learned to Drive and  received a Connecticut Drama Critic's Outstanding Performance Award for her work in The Laramie Project.  Favorite roles include Hedda Gabler, Charlotte Corday in Marat/Sade, Marlene in Top Girls, and Salome in The Robber Bridegroom.  And most recently the world premier of Jean- Claude vanItallie’s  Fear It’s Self.  An Ohio native, Ms. Patrick Benson is a graduate of Kent State and received an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers.  She taught  at Weist-Barron School and  HB Studio where she was head of the voice/speech department.  She  Coached dialects for  For numerous regional theatres and off Broadway productions. She is currently the voice and speech specialist for the SIUC Theater Department