Richard Seer
Acting/Program Director
An award-winning actor and director in New York and Los Angeles for over twenty years, Richard Seer performed on Broadway, off-Broadway, on film and television, and has directed or performed in over 60 productions at regional theatres in this country and Great Britain. Broadway credits include originating the role of Young Charlie (Theatre World Award) in the 1978 Tony award-winning production of Hugh Leonard’s Da. Other credits include leading roles at the Goodman Theatre, The Kennedy Center, The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, Washington’s Playwrights’ Theatre, Studio Arena Theatre, the Edinburgh Festival, and the Sybil Thorndike Repertory Theatre in Great Britain, to name a few. As Old Globe resident director, he has directed productions of Blue/Orange, All My Sons, Da, and Old Wicked Songs.  Other recent directing assignments include Much Ado About Nothing for Shakespeare Santa Cruz and Misalliance for Center Repertory Theatre. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree in directing from Boston University, where he was awarded the prestigious Kahn Directing Award in 1985.  He was invited to return to Boston University’s School for the Arts in 1990 as associate professor of acting and directing. In addition, he has been a guest lecturer with American Repertory Theatre’s graduate acting program, artist-in-residence at The Colorado College, and associate artistic director of New York’s American Festival Theatre.  Professor Seer has been director of The Old Globe/University of San Diego professional actor training program since 1993.

Robert Barry Fleming
Singing
Professional credits include Broadway (RAGTIME, STAND-UP TRAGEDY), Off-Broadway ( INSURRECTION: HOLDING HISTORY@ The Public/ NYSF), Regional (ACT, Mark Taper Forum, The Guthrie), Film (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, THE TWILIGHT OF THE GOLDS), and numerous television guest spots. M.F.A. from The University of Alabama/ Alabama Shakespeare Festival/ Professional Actor Training Program. Joined the Theatre Arts faculty at USD in 2004. Teaching specialties in areas of Voice and Speech, Acting, Global and Musical Theatre. Robert directed SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD last season and will be co-directing the USD graduate and undergraduate joint production of MARAT/SADE by Peter Weiss opening in March. Robert is a member of the Roy Hart Theatre International Artistic Centre in Malererague, France.

Maria Carrera
Alexander Technique
Maria Carrera has taught the Alexander Technique for the MFA program since 1990. She trained at A.T.I. Los Angeles, with post-graduate study in the US and abroad. Certified by the American Society for the Alexander Technique, she has also served on its national board of directors. Her theatre background includes credits as a producer, director and playwright, and over a dozen years as a stage manager at the Old Globe Theatre. Maria holds a BA and MA in English Literature, a BA in Philosophy and is a member of A.E.A. She maintains a private teaching practice in San Diego.

Cynthia L. Caywood
Literature
Cynthia L. Caywood has been a member of the USD faculty since 1984. She has taught at Washburn University, Duke University, and Wake Forest University. She is currently director of USD’s Oxford programs, and Chair of the study abroad program. One of the founders of the Aphra Behn Society, she published a number of articles on Aphra Behn and Restoration theatre. She is also the editor of Teaching Writing: Pedagogy, Gender and Equity. In 1986 she received a teaching award from the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies and in 1998, she was awarded the Davies Award for Teaching Excellence.

Sabin Epstein
Head of Acting
Mr. Epstein received his MFA degree from American Conservatory Theatre’s graduate acting program in 1986.  He has taught at Stanford University, UCLA, California Institute of the Arts, National Theatre Conservatory (Denver), University of Washington, University of Virginia, University of Southern California, and most recently, USD.  His extensive professional directing credits include over twenty productions for A Noise Within in Los Angeles (Resident Director); American Conservatory Theater (Resident Director 1988-91); Georgia Shakespeare Festival (Associate Artist); Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Utah Shakespeare Festival; and productions in Australia, New Zealand, and Scotland, to name a few.  He is also the author of Basic Acting: The Modular Acting Process, and co-author of Acting with Style.

Gerhard Gessner
Yoga
Gerhard has been teaching yoga for over 18 years. He is trained in a variety of different styles of Hatha Yoga, including Ashtanga, Iyengar, Bikram Ananda and Contact Yoga. His non-dogmatic approach to yoga is eclectic and combines elements of all the styles he has studied, tailored to the needs of his students. His educational background includes a BA in Mechanical Engineering, a MA in Education and a MA in Counseling Psychology. He is a certified Massage Therapist, a certified Hatha Yoga teacher, and studied Dance and Movement Therapy at the Tamalpa Institute in San Francisco and with Gabrielle Roth at the Moving Center. Gerhard is owner and Director of Prana Yoga Center in La Jolla, California.

Jan Gist
Voice and Speech
Jan Gist has been the Resident Voice and Speech Coach at The Old Globe since Summer 2001. Prior to that, she was the Voice and Speech coach at Alabama Shakespeare Festival for 140 productions. Other credits include Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Utah Shakespearean Festival, The Shakespeare Theatre, Arena Stage, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, PlayMakers’ Repertory. Film credits include The Rosa Parks Story. Other teaching credits include California State University, Long Beach, Cal. Rep. Co., PlayMakers’ Rep., Voice And Speech Trainers Association Conference--Shakespeare's Shapely Language, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and Carnegie Mellon University. Business and Corporate Clients include: U.P.S, Vialogue, Rheem, Allegro Resorts, Virgil Scudder and Associates. Ms. Gist is an originating member of and has been published in the journals of the Voice And Speech Trainers Association, and has led many presentations, panels and workshops for American Theatre in Higher Education. Other publications include exercises in The Complete Voice and Speech Workout book and CD, and dialect contributions in More Stage Dialects. Jan has recently been featured on KPBS Radio's A Way With Words, and performed voice over work for the San Diego Museum of Art.

Peter Kanelos
Renaissance Literature
Peter Kanelos received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2002 and taught at Stanford as a postdoctoral fellow from 2002-3. He is an editor of the New Variorum edition of Twelfth Night and has published articles on Shakespeare, Montaigne and Vasari. Dr. Kanelos has lectured nationally and internationally on Shakespearean drama, and was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 2004 for work at the Blackfriars Theater in Virginia and the Globe Theater in London. He teaches in the English department at the University of San Diego and in the USD/Old Globe Master of Fine Arts in Acting program.

Fred Miller Robinson
Modern Drama
Fred Miller Robinson received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington in 1972 and has taught modern literature and cultural studies, first at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1970-92), then at USD (1992 -present). He is the author of three books and numerous articles, most especially on comedy and comic theory, Samuel Beckett and Wallace Stevens. For the past nine years he has been reviewing books on cultural studies for The New York Times Book Review. He has won distinguished teaching awards at UMass and USD. He has taught Modern Drama in the Globe Theatres/USD MFA Program in Dramatic Arts since 1994. He is writing a book on the interculture of Ireland and America, for work on which he won a UniversityProfessorship at USD in 1997.

Liz Shipman
Movement
Liz Shipman is Co-Founder and Associate Director of the Kings County Shakespeare Company in New York City having served as its Co-Artistic Director from 1985-2001. Liz is a Certified (Laban) Movement Analyst, specializing in a movement-based approach to acting. She was movement teacher for Ruth Nerken’s “Technique for the Whole Actor” Studio from 1990-1997 and has taught all levels of students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Manhattan Marymount College, The Atlantic Theatre Company, T. Schreiber Studio and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (NYC). She served as a member of the core faculty of Webster University’s Conservatory of Theatre Arts in St. Louis from 2000-2005. She has directed and choreographed at Webster, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, New Avenue Theatre Project, Utah Shakespearean Festival, the Old Globe and elsewhere.

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