Recent Teachers

2008 Faculty

Conference Director Todd Hearon’s poems and plays have appeared in such journals as AGNI, The Kenyon Review, Memorious, Ploughshares, Poetry, The New Republic, Slate and The Southern Review. He is the recipient of a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship for creative writing, a Paul Green Playwrights Prize, and, most recently, a PEN New England "Discovery" Award for poetry. Todd earned his M.A. in Irish Studies from Boston College and his Ph.D. in Editorial Studies from Boston University; while there, he co-founded The Bridge Theatre Company, a troupe committed to the production of classical and contemporary verse drama from Aristophanes to Yeats. He has directed The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (Marat/Sade) by Peter Weiss; Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida; The Love of the Nightingale by Timberlake Wertenbaker, and Bloody Poetry by Howard Brenton. His acting credits include Yeats’s Purgatory (Old Man) and the title role in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Currently, he teaches English at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Dan Drummond teaches on the English faculty at St. Sebastian's School in Needham, Massachusetts, after serving for five years as Director of College Guidance at the University School of Milwaukee and six years as a Senior Admissions Officer at Harvard College. Originally from Duluth, Minnesota, Dan earned his BA degree in English Literature from Harvard in 1991, focusing on Shakespearean studies and writing a senior thesis entitled "Shakespeare's Noise: Politics and Parasites in the Henriad". After enrolling at Harvard's Graduate School of Education for his MA degree in 1998, Dan has focused on Shakespearean studies as a teacher and researcher, working with secondary school students in this area for the past eight years and attending the Exeter Shakespeare Conference last year. He lives with his wife Sarah, a professor at the Andover Newton Theological School, and his daughter Jacqueline, a five-year old karate enthusiast, in Dedham, MA.

Marjorie Garber is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English and of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, where she is also Chair of the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and Director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. A graduate of Swarthmore College (B.A. 1966; hon. D. 2004) and of Yale University (Ph.D. 1969), she has taught at Yale, at Haverford, and—since 1981—at Harvard. Garber has published thirteen books (two more are forthcoming this year), and edited twelve collections of essays. The scope of her work is both broad and deep—her topics range from animal studies to literary theory, but her work has mostly been centered on Shakespeare. Garber has written five widely admired books on the playwright, including her most recent, Profiling Shakespeare (Routledge, 2008) and Shakespeare After All (Pantheon, 2004), which received the 2005 Christian Gauss Book Award from Phi Beta Kappa. Another book on the Bard, Shakespeare and Modern Culture, will appear later this year from Routledge.

Rob Richards teaches in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Phillips Exeter Academy. His introduction to theater was the puppet stage where he performed and co-produced full-length marionette plays for twenty years. After receiving his MFA in acting from Rutgers University, Rob moved to New York where he performed on PBS television and Off Broadway. His passion for masks recently led him to Bali where he studied acting and Balinese dance. He enjoys gardening and hearing the laughter of his wife and children.

2007 Faculty/Visiting Artists

Benjamin Evett is the founder and Artistic Director of the Actors' Shakespeare Project (visit their Website at http://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/) and directed the company's inaugural production , Richard III. He also played Cassius in Julius Caesar and Edmund in King Lear; most recently he starred in the company’s production of Hamlet. In May 2005, he won the Elliot Norton Award for performances in Permanent Collection (Paul Barrow) and Quills (Abbe de Coulmier) at the New Rep Theatre and Richard III (Richmond) at Actors' Shakespeare Project. He was a member of the Resident Acting Company at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge from 1983 to 2003, acting in more than 50 productions including Waiting for Godot, The Bacchae, Phaedra, Ivanov, The King Stag and Six Characters in Search of an Author. He has also performed at the Huntington Theatre, Commonwealth Shakespeare Co., Hartford Stage Co., Missouri Rep. Theatre, Virginia Stage Co., Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Cleveland Play House and others. He has performed at the Festivale Biennale in Venice, the Festival d'Automne in Paris, at the Taiwan National Theatre and The Moscow Art Theatre. A graduate of Harvard College with a degree in Classics, he now teaches at The Boston Conservatory.

Jennie Israel serves as Associate Artistic Director for the Actors' Shakespeare Project. She played Goneril in the company’s award-winning production of King Lear, Calpurnia/Trebonius/Pindarus in Julius Caesar, and Elizabeth in Richard III. Other New England credits include Lady Macbeth for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; Tartuffe at New Repertory Theater; Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Huntington Theatre; Living in Exile at the Vineyard Playhouse; Molly Maguire at the Sugan Theatre; Veronika Vavoom Volcanologist at Boston Theatre Works; Undine's Valediction, Summer, The Scarlet Letter and Macbeth with Shakespeare & Company. Her regional credits include Yale Repertory Theatre, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, The Greenwich Street Theatre, Lincoln Center Theatre, Theatre Building Chicago, Ohio Theatre Soho, Sun Valley Shakespeare Festival, and Chautauqua Theatre Festival. Film and television credits include Rudy for TriStar Pictures, “Guiding Light,” and Coming to Litchfield, an independent film. Jennie has taught voice, Shakespearean text and acting at Bowdoin College, Harvard, Boston College, SUNY/Purchase, Emerson, and The Boston Conservatory. She earned her MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

Nita Grace Pettigrew served as the head of the English Department at Phillips Exeter Academy until her retirement in 2005. She was awarded the Brown Prize for Excellence in Teaching at the Academy twice: once in 1999 and again in 2003. She has been the recipient of three National Endowment for the Humanities grants that have enabled her to study Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner and Wallace Stevens. Nita has directed PEA’s Stratford Program, a term abroad in Shakespeare’s world. While at Harvard, she concentrated her studies on student-centered pedagogy. Nita continues to participate in on-going research relevant to teaching and learning. Each summer Nita spends a gala week immersed in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Nita earned her B.A. from Louisiana State University, M.A. from University of Oregon, and her Ed.M. from Harvard University.

Michael F. Walker is a member of the resident company at Actor’s Shakespeare Project and with A.S.P. has played Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, Cornwall in King Lear, Pompey/Friar Peter in Measure for Measure, and Brakenbury/Ratcliff in Richard III. Other Boston appearances include Boston Theatre Works, Molasses Tank Productions, The Bridge Theatre Company, Company One, and Willing Suspension Productions. His past credits include Antony and Cleopatra; Ionesco, Not Ionesco; Troilus and Cressida; Native Speech; Love's Fire; The Roaring Girl; The Borderers; James IV; The Spanish Tragedy; The Dwarfs; The Alchemist; A Chaste Maid in Cheapside; The Rover; Tales of the Lost Formicans; Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Sleeping Beauty or Coma; and The Metamorphosis. Michael studied acting while an undergraduate English major at UNC-Charlotte, and he holds an M.A. in English literature from Boston University.

Robert Walsh is a member of the resident company at Actor’s Shakespeare Project and with A.S.P. has directed Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure. He acted in the company’s production of Julius Caesar and Richard III and was the Fight Director for its award-winning production of King Lear. His other credits include True West (New Rep), The Norman Conquests (Merrimack Rep), Othello (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey), I Hate Hamlet (StageWest), The Little Foxes (Barter Theatre), Misalliance (Two River Theatre Company), The Liar (Lyric Stage), and more than a dozen productions for the American Stage Festival, where he served as Producing Artistic Director. Robert is a guest instructor at American Repertory Theatre, Brandeis University.