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Education In his famous comment on the artist's life, playwright Sean O'Casey also frames the fundamental habits that define liberally educated men and women. "The artist's life is to be where life is, active life, found in neither
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J Ranelli Visiting Professor of Theater Specialization:
J Ranelli, Visiting Professor of Theater, began his service to the College as an adjunct professor and member of the theater studies committee shortly after his own studies at Wesleyan, in the days before the department was established. Since then he has served as visiting professor on a number of occasions. A professional stage and television director, his work has been seen on and off-Broadway, in the U.S. and Canadian regional theater and on festival stages around the world. His television credits include "Law & Order" (NBC), "One More Spring" (PBS) and "Nightwalk" (CBS, Camera 3). Long committed to the development of new plays and playwrights, he is a founding member of the Tony Award-winning Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, where he served as a director for the National Playwrights Conference and on the Center's board of trustees and executive committee. At the O'Neill Center he also created and developed the experimental undergraduate program (The National Theater Institute) and the annual Eugene O'Neill Celebration of the playwright's work and creative spirit. For Goodspeed Musicals he has directed in the Cabaret Showcase of new works (where new music and lyrics are developed) and in the Goodspeed Festival of New Voices, inaugurated in the 2006 season, which presents new musicals in their entirety in a two-week workshop of rehearsals and public performances. He is an artistic associate and a member of the national advisory board of WORDBRIDGE, a summer workshop program for student playwrights, based at Clemson University. He was one of the first artists invited to contribute to the development of the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD), also a Tony winner. His production of "Under Milk Wood" for NTD was hailed by critics on Broadway, national tour and at festivals in Amsterdam, Dubrovnik, Paris and Caesarea. His screenplay "One More Spring" based on Robert Nathan's novel, was nominated for a Cable Ace Award and his play "Lolly Foster's Daredevil Airshow" was produced by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. His work in New York also includes productions at the Actor's Studio, The New Dramatists, The Manhattan Theater Club, The Roundabout Theater and The American Place where he staged Donald Barthelme's "Great Days", a production commemorated by critical praise and Barthleme's affectionate follow-up story, "Opening," in the pages of the New Yorker. Ranelli's work has been supported by grants and awards from the National Endowment on the Arts, The National Theater Translation Fund, The Connecticut Commission on the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Mark Taper Forum, The Rhode Island Arts Council and the R.F. Johnson Fund. As an educator he has served on the faculties of Wesleyan, Stanford, Pomona, The University of Rhode Island (chair), Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon, NYU Tisch, Manhattanville College and as a guest artist at several other institutions. He also teaches and coaches privately in New York and Los Angeles. A graduate of The University of Rochester (B.A.) and Wesleyan University (M.A.) and a veteran of the United States Air Force, he is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, The Directors Guild of America and the Dramatists Guild. At Connecticut College, he teaches playwriting, screenwriting, directing and acting and, with theater professor Linda Herr, he is co-leader of the "Eugene O'Neill and His America" seminar. His workshop on acting and directing the plays of O'Neill has been an annual feature of the National Critics Institute for more than ten years. View the theater department site. |