KNOXVILLE — This week’s College of Arts and Sciences Pregame Faculty Showcase will take football fans to the stage and screen to explore careers in the entertainment industry.
Set for 5:45 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 31, the session, All ‘Stars’: UT Actors Seek Fame and Fortune on Stage and Screen will examine the challenges actors face in the business and how UT works to prepare them for those challenges. The presentation will be in the University Center Ballroom.
Jed Diamond, associate professor and head of acting in the department of theatre, will lead the session, which also will include acting alumni and Master in Fine Arts (MFA) students.
“There will be at least one song and some scenes of Shakespeare and other great writers too. I hope the whole thing will be entertaining,” Diamond said.
Diamond has led a revision of the MFA in acting program, which now competes successfully with the finest conservatories in the nation. He also has been instrumental in significant revisions and improvements to the undergraduate program.
Diamond acts and directs for the Clarence Brown Theatre and teaches the Alexander Technique, a fundamental practice in skillful movement for performers.
His roles for Clarence Brown have included Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (three times); Cardinal Inquisitor in Life of Galileo; Baptiste in A Flea in Her Ear; Ed Devery in Born Yesterday; and Jay Follett in All the Way Home.
Diamond came to UT in 2005 after working as an actor and teacher in New York City for 18 years. He received his master’s in acting from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 1989 and completed the three-year teacher training in the Alexander Technique in 1997.
Diamond acted in major roles at the Roundabout Theatre (Broadway), Signature Theatre, Arena Stage, Syracuse Stage, with the Acting Company and the New York Shakespeare Festival. He was a member of the founding faculties of the Actors Center and the Shakespeare Lab at the New York Shakespeare Festival. He also taught at NYU, the Stella Adler Conservatory, Playwrights Horizons Theatre School and Fordham University.
For 20 years, the Pregame Faculty Showcase has introduced football fans to some of UT Knoxville’s most exceptional faculty members speaking about a wide range of topics. Each showcase features a 30-minute presentation followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer session.
Free and open to the public, the presentations are always held two hours before kickoff in the University Center Ballroom.
Two remaining showcases are on the schedule:
Nov. 7 (Homecoming) — Larry McKay, professor and head of the earth and planetary sciences department, will explain how geology and hydrology affect viruses and bacteria in groundwater and streams.
Nov. 21 — Michael Lofaro, English professor, will look at “James Agee at 100: A Centennial Celebration.”
The showcases are recorded and the webcast archives are posted online at http://www.artsci.utk.edu/outreach/Pre_Game.asp.
The showcases are sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, WUOT 91.9 FM, the UT Alumni Association, the UT Office of Alumni Affairs and UT Athletics.
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C O N T A C T :
Beth Gladden, (865-974-9008, bgladden@utk.edu)