BIO
Elizabeth is an actor, director, and voice and movement coach with fifteen years of experience teaching theatre and dance. Elizabeth is a Lessac Kinesensic Voice and Body Training Practitioner, a certified Margolis Method Educator, and recently received the Theatre Nohgaku Mitsuo Kama Memorial Award for her research in Noh theatre and performance. She has performed at Odin Teatret in Denmark and the Rhodopi Dramatichen Teatar in Bulgaria and studied French at L’Université François Rabelais in Tours, France. Elizabeth holds a Master of Arts in French from Bowling Green State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Performance and Pedagogy from Texas Tech University.
Her research and creative activity focus on the integration of Eastern and Western training practices, issues of community and social justice, and applied theatre using intercultural physical theatre, devised theatre, and digital technology in performance. She is currently working on a book about the scope and applications of the Margolis Method for actor training. As a teacher Elizabeth builds spaces of agency, belonging, and compassion that foster learning through play, exploration, repetition, and reflection. Teaching and learning for Elizabeth is about making meaning for and with her students and being open to the ways students also make meaning for her.
Elizabeth recently directed The Tempest for Schmeeckle Shakes/CWACT (Central Wisconsin Area Community Theatre). At UWSP, Elizabeth directed As We Climb, a devised project which examined feminism’s invitation to honor the full humanity of all individuals. The production addressed gender inequities and oppressive sexist and racist ideologies based on the writings of bell hooks, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and global feminist activists. She is currently working on an independent project titled Lady O.G., a one-woman show about the political activist, actor, and playwright Olympe de Gouges.
Elizabeth is a member of NAAT (National Alliance of Acting Teachers), an executive member of the Acting Focus Group and the Theatre and Social Change Focus Group for ATHE (Association of Theatre in Higher Education). She is also a member of VASTA (Voice and Speech Trainers Association) and ATDS (American Theatre and Drama Society).
www.elizabethparks.org