Download a complete copy of Holly L. Derr’s curriculum vitae
POSITIONS HELD (selected)
University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA: Guest Director (Fall 2012), an expressionist production of The Metal Children, by Adam Rapp, which drew heavily on the tropes of contemporary horror films.
Chapman University, Orange, CA: Lecturer (Spring 2012), Guest Director, Rimers of Eldritch, by Lanford Wilson, and Instructor in “Styles: Acting in Greek, Restoration, Epic, and Modernist Productions”.
University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA: Guest Director (Winter 2011), a rave-inspired, song and dance Twelfth Night on the main stage, and created a thirty-five minute version for a tour to underserved communities as part of the Gluck Fellows Arts Education Outreach Program.
California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA: Guest Director (Fall 2010), Ruins, a new half musical, half domestic melodrama, in which a family’s past overtakes their present, by Brittany Knupper.
American Repertory Theater Institute for Advanced Actor Training at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA: Viewpoints Instructor (2006-2010). Instructor: in the Viewpoints, a philosophy of movement translated into a technique for creating movement on stage; and Composition, a practice of arranging components of theatrical language into a cohesive work of art for the stage (undergraduate intensive for Harvard students, January 2010; full semester course for 2nd-year graduate students, Fall 2009; one-month workshop for 1st- and 2nd-years, Fall 2007). Guest Director (2006-2007): Directed workshop of six six six, a new play based on the Faust myth, Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, the Virginia Tech shootings, and the music of Robert Johnson as part of the “Bake-Off:” a collaboration between 2nd-year MFA student actors at the ART and Brown University Literary Arts MFA playwriting students (Fall 2007). Directed workshops of The Wild Big Girls and Get Your Troy On, based on Kleist’s Penthiselea and the Wonder Woman mythology as part of the “Bake-Off” (Fall 2006). Directed The Front Page: by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur, 2nd-year production (Fall 2006).
Brown University/Trinity Repertory Company Consortium New Play Festival, Providence, RI: Guest Director (Spring 2007). Directed Common Decency, by Ann Marie Healy: a collaboration between 2nd-year Trinity MFA acting students, a Brown PhD student dramaturg, a Brown Literary Arts MFA student playwright, and Brown University undergraduates. Artistic Director: Bonnie Metzgar; Producer: Rick Dildine.
Smith College, Northampton, MA: Visiting Assistant Professor (Fall 2005 – Spring 2006) and Visiting Lecturer (Fall 2008 – Spring 2010). Courses included Viewpoints & Composition, Acting, Theater History & Culture, and American Theater & Drama. (See complete CV for list of classes taught.)
Marlboro College, Marlboro, VT: Professor of Theater (Fall 2002 – Spring 2005). Courses included Acting I and II, Directing, Viewpoints & Composition, Manifestos, and Revolutionary Dramaturgies. Tutorials and seminars on the theories and methods of Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal, The Creative and Theoretical Works of Helene Cixous, and Symbolism, Surrealism, and the Absurd. (See complete CV for list of classes taught.)
DIRECTING EXPERIENCE (selected)
University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA (Fall 2012): an expressionist production of The Metal Children, by Adam Rapp, which drew heavily on the tropes of contemporary horror films.
Chapman University, Orange, CA (Spring 2012): Rimers of Eldritch, by Lanford Wilson.
Warner Loughlin Studios, Hollywood, CA (Summer 2011): semi-staged reading of American Medea.
University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA (Spring 2011): a rave-inspired, song and dance Twelfth Night on the main stage, also created a thirty-five minute version for a tour to underserved communities as part of the Gluck Fellows Arts Education Outreach Program.
Ensemble Studio Theater Los Angeles, Atwater Village, CA (2010): reading of American Medea.
California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA: Guest Director (2010): Ruins, a new half musical, half domestic drama in which a family’s past overtakes their present, by Brittany Knupper.
PlayPenn New Play Development Conference Philadelphia, PA (2008): House of Gold, an expressionist play about JonBenet Ramsey and a culture that preys on Little Girls, by Gregory S. Moss.
Brown University/Trinity Repertory Company Consortium Providence, RI (2007): Common Decency, New Play Festival, by Ann Marie Healy.
American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Actor Training Cambridge, MA 2006-2007
Sixsixsix, by Gregory Moss (workshop)
The Front Page, by Ben Hecht andCharles MacArthur
The Wild Big Girls, by Ann Marie Healy (workshop)
Get Your Troy On, by Enrique Urueta (workshop)
Smith College, Northampton, MA 2005-2010
American Medea, by Holly Derr (workshop)
A Brief Narrative of the Extraordinary Birth of Rabbits, by Colin Denby Swanson (workshop)
The Wire, by Leah Ryan (reading)
Golden Girls, by Louise Page
Marlboro College, Marlboro, VT 2002-2005
Speak, an adaptation by Holly Derr of the novel by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Time of Your Life (original musical adaptation), based on the original play by William Saroyan
Scene 9 (world premiere), by Henry David Clarke
Columbia University, New York, NY 1999-2002
Anatomy of Isabelle: A Reconstructed Production, adapted from New Anatomies by Timberlake Wertenbaker
The Vagina Monologues Spring 01 and 02, Eve Ensler
When We Dead Awaken, Henrik Ibsen
Monsieur X: Here Called Pierre Rabier, an adaptation of the Marguerite Duras memoir, War
Hundreds of Collisions, an original piece based on the theories of John Cage Doors, an autobiographical piece about the director based on the theories of Thadeusz Kantor
Hollywoodland, Tim Braun
In the Penal Colony, an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s short story
SKT, Inc.,New York, NY 1996-2002
Director and Producer:
Miller Theatre: Co-production of The Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler, Spring 02 with
Columbia University
Horace Mann Theater: Co-production of Anatomy of Isabelle: A Reconstructed
Production, adapted from New Anatomies by Timberlake Wertenbaker, with
Columbia University
The Looking Glass Theatre: Cymbeline, William Shakespeare
Surf Reality: The Trojan Women, adaptation from versions by Charles L. Mee, Jr.,
Brendan Kennelly, and John Barton
The Connelly Theater: Why We Have a Body, Claire Chaffee
The John Houseman Theater: Like It Is, Johnathan F. McClain
Two Summer reading series of plays by women exploring what feminist theater is, how
we find it, and how we make it, Summer 1998 and 1999
Producer:
29th Street Rep: Floating Redundant, Kimberly Howard
The Connelly Theater: The Philanderer, George Bernard Shaw
45th Street Theater: Goldfish, Joshua Shelov
Big Dance Theater, New York, NY
The Most Recent History and Most Lamentable Tragedy of the 8ees (‘80’S) Passover, Sortof: directed new piece (text by Henry David Clarke) in Play Play Faster Faster festival, 2005.
WRITING/ADAPTATIONS
Short “Internet Plays” written for my blog.
American Medea, using the structure and characters of Euripides’ play with text from the letters, trials, and news coverage of Susan Smith, Andrea Yates, Darlie Routier, and Deborah Green; read at Ensemble Studio Theater LA’s Sunday Best, December 2010
Speak, an adaptation of the novel by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Time of Your Life (original musical adaptation), based on the original play by William Saroyan
Anatomy of Isabelle: A Reconstructed Production, a documentary production chronicling unfinished work on a production of New Anatomies (Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play about Isabelle Eberhardt, an early 20th-Century European traveler who converted to Islam and lived among the Sufi Mystics of North Africa), which was interrupted by the tragedy of 9/11
In the Penal Colony, an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s short story
Monsieur X: Here Called Pierre Rabier, an adaptation of the Marguerite Duras memoir, War
Hundreds of Collisions, an original piece based on the theories of John Cage
Doors, an autobiographical piece about the director based on the theories of Thadeusz Kantor
SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/holly/Documents/job%20search/teaching/curriculum%20vitae%20derr.doc
PUBLICATION
“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Sandra Bernhard”
“A Look Inside the Mind of a Suffragist”
“New Fire from Cherríe Moraga”
“The Personal is Political and Always Has Been: SITI Company’s The Trojan Women”
“Playwright Alice Childress: An African American Classic Finds New Life”
“Porgy and Bess: Without the Sexism and Racism?”
EDUCATION
Composition Master Class “Greek Drama Now” with Anne Bogart, New York, NY May 2010: a workshop with actors, directors, choreographers, designers and playwrights making short compositions of the major Greek tragedies which feel both contemporary and timeless.
Columbia University, New York, NY 2002 MFA in Theater Directing. Directing: Robert Woodruff and Anne Bogart. Voice and Shakespeare: Kristin Linklater. Viewpoints & Composition: Anne Bogart. Director, Playwright, Actor, & Dramaturg Collaboration: Anne Bogart. Russian Psychological Theater Directing: Slava Dolgatchev. American Theater and Drama: Evangeline Morphos. Theater Management: Gerald Schoenfeld. Design for Directors: Robin Wagner. Designer/Director Collaboration: John Conklin and Anne Bogart.
En Garde Arts, New York, NY 1997 Site Specific Theater Directing: Tina Landau
Commercial Theatre Institute, New York, NY 1996 Producing for the Commercial Theatre 14-week Seminar: Frederic Vogel, Director; guest speakers included Gerald Schoenfeld, Ben Sprecher, Eric Krebs, Alan Schuster, Peter Askin, Randall Wreghitt, Albert Poland, Michael David, and others.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 1995 BA with distinction and honors in Dramatic Arts. Theater History & Theory: Dr. Milly Barranger. Directing: David Hammond and Michael Wilson. Acting: Susanna Rhinehart and Dede Corvinus.
