Michael R. Burnham
Associate Professor of Drama
burnhaml@ucmail.uc.edu

Michael just finished a two week project on contemporary world slavery with people from 7 countries in it, using 5 languages. This summer he also spent time in Indiana directing a new version of The Pied Piper, which was composed by Randy Woolf, who's the guy who composed the ballet version of Where The Wild Things Are. Before coming to CCM, Michael was Literary Manager at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, a theater critic for Cincinnati Magazine, and a theater and film critic for WGUC-FM.  He was also a Fellow of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center. As a director and occasional actor and playwright, he is a champion of small experimental theatre companies.   Michael performs as a storyteller throughout the eastern part of the country, and has narrated symphony concerts for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Salt Lake Symphony Opera, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra among others.  His adaptation of Stravinsky's l'Histoire du Soldat (which he directed while playing the Devil) premiered at the Salt Lake Symphony Opera.  Michael is a recipient of a League of Cincinnati Theatres Sustained Achievement Award and has been inducted into the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards Hall of Fame.  At CCM-Drama he directs and teaches courses in script analysis, directing, dramaturgy, and a class called The Artist in Society.  Michael has been teaching at CCM since 1984.

Rocco Dal Vera
Professor of Drama
dalverr@ucmail.uc.edu

Rocco Dal Vera

Rocco is a Professor of Drama specializing in voice and speech.  His book Voice: Onstage and Off, co-authored with Robert Barton, has been nominated as the Best New Theatre Publication by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and is in use by numerous College and University theatre programs (newest edition due out from Routledge in 2011). His latest book (co-authored with Joe Deer) is Acting in Musical Theatre: a comprehensive course. Together they write a monthly article series on acting in Musical Theatre for Dramatics Magazine.
 
He is one of a handful of certified trainers in the Alba Emoting method and his research interest is in the voice and emotional extremes. Rocco is also the founding editor of the journal Voice and Speech Review for the Voice and Speech Trainers Association, and has edited the first three books in that series: Standard Speech and other contemporary issues in professional voice and speech training, The Voice in Violence…, and Film, Broadcast and e-Media Coaching….

Rocco is a faculty member of the Xavier University Leadership Center where he coaches executives on communication and presentation skills. He is the former head of the BFA Professional Actor and Musical Theatre Training Programs for Wright State University. He has also taught at the National Theatre Conservatory, Willamette University, United States International University and is the former chair of the Voice and Speech Department at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Now, the resident vocal coach and Associate Artist for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, the Tony-Award winning Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville and the Human Race Theatre, he has worked as a voice and speech coach at numerous theatres around the US including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Long Beach Civic Light Opera, and the Los Angeles Theatre Center—coaching an average of 30 to 50 productions a year.
 
Mr. Dal Vera received his MFA in voice coaching and training for the theatre from the National Theatre Conservatory at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and his BFA in musical theatre from United States International University.
 
His voice can be heard on numerous commercials and he has worked on over 500 films and television shows including LA Law, Hill Street Blues, THIRTY-something, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Gods Must Be Crazy. He can currently be seen as co-host and assistant producer of the public television series, Healthward Bound...a lifelong journey, which recently won the prize for Best Series at the American Medical Association's International Film Awards.
Faculty, CCM since 1998.

BA, Birmingham- Southern College; MFA, Boston U. Member: Actors’ Equity Association, Phi Beta Kappa, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Alpha Psi Omega. Teachers have included Alan Schneider, David Wheeler and Patsy Rodenberg. Additional training through the Arena Stage and the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain. Panel member or workshop leader with various national organizations: National Association of Schools of Theatre, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Southeastern Theatre Conference, University/Resident Theatre Association, and others. Past president, Ohio Theatre Alliance. Former artistic director, Showboat Majestic. Recent directing credits at CCM include Rashomon, Charley’s Aunt, Floyd Collins, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Diviners, Myths and Hymns, and As You Like It. Faculty, Birmingham-Southern College and the Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts. Chairs the Commission on Accreditation for the National Association of Schools of Theatre and is a member of the NAST Board of Directors; serves on the Board of Directors of the University/Resident Theatre Association;  and serves on the Board of Directors for the American High School Theatre Festival. Faculty, CCM since 1984.

Richard E. Hess
Associate Professor of Drama
Cohen Chair of Dramatic Performance
Chair of the Department of Drama
hessre@.uc.edu

Richard E. Hess, Associate Professor of Drama. BA, BS SUNY at Fredonia, MS SUNY College at Buffalo, MFA U. of Cincinnati. Associate Member: Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. He has been Chair of CCM Drama for the past 16 years. Recent directing credits at CCM include Spring Awakening, Bat Boy: The Musical, Anon(ymous) (ACCLAIM Award for Outstanding Production) Big Love, The Lady’s Not For Burning, Noises Off, Brigadoon (Cincinnati Entertainment Award (CEA) for Outstanding Musical), and Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches (CEA for Ensemble Acting Performance). Favorite directing credits at the Human Race Theatre Co., where he has been a resident artist since 1996, include I Am My Own Wife, A Delicate Balance (10 Daytony Awards including Best Direction and Production), The Drawer Boy (8 Daytony Awards including Best Direction and Production), and A Little Night Music. He made his New York debut at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on 42nd Street directing AN EVENING OF (Mostly) TRUE SONGS, a new incarnation of Don’t Look Down, the music and lyrics of Adam Wagner, last seen in the 2005 Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Other credits include the Los Angeles staging of the one-woman show Besame Mucho, O.K. That's Enough, written by and starring Diana Maria Riva, and the smash hit The Pages of My Diary I'd Rather Not Read, which enjoyed sold out runs at the Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles and the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati. His most recent Los Angeles production, The Catholic Girl’s Guide to Losing Your Virginity, after playing a 10 week sold out run at the Hudson Theatre, which was the hit of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival 2006, enjoyed a sold out week at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. For five years he was the artistic director of Hot Summer Nights in Cincinnati, where he directed Violet, Hello, Dolly! (with Pam Myers), and the premiere of We Tell The Story: The Songs of Ahrens and Flaherty. He had the privilege of working and studying with internationally acclaimed director Anne Bogart and members of the Saratoga International Theatre Institute (SITI Co.) for two summers in New York and Los Angeles, and is a frequent guest Viewpoints teacher around the world. He taught on the Conservatory faculty at the Chautauqua Institution in New York for four years, and directed Feydeau's A Flea In Her Ear and Moss Hart's Light Up The Sky for the Conservatory. He has worked with the Cincinnati Playwright's Initiative, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Pops, the critically acclaimed music ensemble eighth blackbird, and Cincinnati Opera Education, where he has directed four touring children's operas, including Menoti's The Bride From Pluto and Richard Brooks' Rapunzel. He is proud of fostering the new work of playwright's, and has directed first productions of Richard Oberacker and Rob Taylor's Don't Make Me Pull This Show Over: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Parenting (Audience Pick of the Fringe-Cincinnati Fringe Festival 2008), Mark Halpin's The Kid in the Dark (CEA Award winner for Best Alternative production), Tom Korbee's Will It Ever Stop Raining?, Ben Magnuson's Four Minutes. He made his debut as a playwright/creator in the Cincinnati Fringe Festival 2006 with (UN)Natural Disaster, created with 13 actors, performed in an abandoned building in Over-the-Rhine, and named the Producer’s Pick of the Fringe. Named Ernest Glover Outstanding Teacher (1999).Faculty, CCM, since 1993.

k. Jenny Jones
Assistant Professor of Drama
k.jenny.jones@uc.edu

BA, Drama, Thomas More College
MFA, Theatre Performance, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Member of the Association of Theatre Movement Educators (ATME), Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD). Certified Fight Director, and Certified Teacher, SAFD. ATME Representative (1997 – present) and SAFD Governing Body member (1998-2000). Previous teaching positions with Northern Kentucky University and Thomas More College. Has taught in non-academic institutions including Bard Alley Studio (owner and director), Salle du Lion, Webster Movement Institute, The Lost Colony, Louisiana Tech Stage Combat Regional Workshop, Cincinnati Opera Outreach, Opera of Central Kentucky, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, and many others. Fight directing and choreography for many organizations including Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Opera, Cincinnati Pops, Portland Opera, Kentucky Opera and CCM's productions of Cyrano, Giulio Cesare, Don Giovanni, As You Like It, Man of La Mancha, Angels in America: Millenium Part I; Perestroika Part II, Fortinbras, Trojan Women, and Il Viaggio A Reims. Ms Jones has studied acting techniques of Micheal Chekhov with Mala Powers, Andrie Malaev-Babel, Joanna Merlin, and Russian Laureate Viacheslav (Slava) Kokorin and is in demand as a Chekhov teacher and coach. Faculty, CCM, since 1993.

Diane L. Kvapil
Associate Professor of Drama
kvapildl@ucmail.uc.edu

Catholic University, Washington, D.C.; Neighborhood Playhouse, New York City. Featured in numerous regional and national touring productions as well as WNET and NBC telecasts. Has performed with National Players in Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Canada, North Africa and Bermuda. In demand for on camera commercial work as well as voice overs for radio and television. Writer, one teleplay recently produced for NBC's Young People's Specials. Studied with Eric Morris, summer 1987. Faculty, CCM, since 1977. 

Robert Pavlovich
Assistant Professor of Drama, Adjunct
BA, Communications/Broadcast News, Minor- Theater, Loyola University
MS, Telecommunication Management, Syracuse University.

An actor, teacher, voice-over artist, director, producer and writer, Bob is an award winning Theater Actor, appearing in over 50 Regional, New Orleans and Cincinnati productions. He has won consecutive "Best Actor" Big Easy Awards for his performances in SEARCH & DESTROY and OF MICE AND MEN. 

His film and TV credits include BAD LIEUTENANT, EMULSION, GHOST FACTORY, PELICAN BRIEF, CAT PEOPLE, LIVING IN TECHNICOLOR, HARD TARGET, THE BIG EASY-Series, THE FIRE NEXT TIME and others including Ohio Independent films. 

In an earlier life, Bob was a reporter/anchor for the UPI Radio Network in New York City and Washington DC; for WWL News Radio 870 (winning a number of awards from the AP and UPI, the Press Club of New Orleans and a Sigma Delta Chi Green Eyeshade Award)

As a Producer/Director and Production Manger for Cox Communications Productions in New Orleans, 1989-1993, he received the Grand Prize Award for Outstanding Achievement in Creative Cable TV Commercial Production from the Cable Advertising Bureau, New York. He also shared in the Best Documentary award from the Press Club of New Orleans for Dangerous Bonds: Gangs in New Orleans. 

Bob has been a part of the Univeristy of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music Dramatic Performance faculty since 1999, teaching Theater History and Acting for the Camera.  He has been nominated by CCM students for a Glover Award, recognizing his commitment to quality education

He has also taught Acting at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) and at Loyola University of the South as well as Television Production at the University of New Orleans.

He is presently Secretary of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Tri-State local, 2004-present and has been a member of AFTRA since 1983; he is also a member of Actors' Equity Association 1998-present. 

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