TFTV Impact Report 2021/2022

• Secret Things, the new play by Theatre Studies Associate Professor Elaine Romero, enjoyed a criticallyacclaimed
production in November/December 2021 at 1st Stage, under the direction of Artistic Director Alex
Levy. The production was singled out as a staff favorite for DC Metro Arts for best of the year. Romero’s
plays, A Sentiment and Swastika, were accepted for publication by TRW Plays. She has forthcoming chapter
contributions for the Routledge Companion to Latinx Theatre and Performance, Decolonizing Dramaturgy
in Global Context (Routledge), and Fornés In Context (Cambridge University Press). Her war pentalogy play,
When Reason Sleeps, was a 2022 finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference out of
1200+ submissions. Prosperita was named a winner in Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Short New Play Festival 2022:
Alchemy where it will be produced alongside plays by Larissa FastHorse and Stephen Adly Guirgis.
• A Dutiful Spouse, a film directed by Film & Television
Associate Professor Michael Mulcahy, was selected to
screen at the 2021 Loft Film Festival. The spine-chilling short
was made entirely at Mulcahy’s home during the pandemic
lockdown.
Mulcahy also earned this year’s James R. Anthony Award for
Sustained Excellence in Teaching, presented to a member
of the College of Fine Arts faculty who has consistently
demonstrated a sustained level of outstanding achievement in
teaching.
• Assistant Professor Christie Kerr directed and
choreographed Moving Beyond the Box, a video installation
that highlights the positive aspects of a technology-dependent
era. Kerr reached out to 14 dancers from across the U.S. and
sent them choreography to learn via an instructional video.
The dancers, both professionals and TFTV Acting/Musical
Theatre students, recorded themselves in their various
locations and sent the resulting videos back to Kerr. The
dance videos were then edited together with snippets of
media stories and sound in a cohesive virtual dance piece that
united the far-flung company of dancers in one digital space. Moving Beyond the Box screened in the Theatre
Building Courtyard via a large-scale projection installation on January 28-29, 2022. More at The Theatre
Times.
Michael Mulcahy directs, and stars in, the spine-chilling short
A Dutiful Spouse
• TFTV Professor of Practice Kevin Black produced, directed, and starred in Fine Revolution, a cinematic theatre
interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Made with support from the University of Arizona Office of Research,
Innovation & Impact, the University of Arizona Libraries and the College of Fine Arts, the immersive production
was presented at the Brink Foundation in Tucson. Black starred alongside a national cast of veteran television
and stage actors, including Nikki Crawford (currently starring in the Pulitzer-Prize winning Fat Ham at the
Public Theatre), David MacDonald (Person of Interest), John Kozeluh (The Dan Band), TFTV alumna Betsey
Kruse Craig, Associate Professor David Morden and Professor Emeritus Harold Dixon. The production’s
multimedia creative team featured TFTV’s Professor of Practice Matt Marcus, Professor Brent Gibbs,
Associate Professor Michael Mulcahy, instructors Alex Leyton and Craig Huston, and an array of recent film
and theatre graduates. Now in development for a touring production, Fine Revolution and its exploration of
technology’s impact on mental health is the subject of a forthcoming Arizona Public Media Arizona Illustrated
story.