Communication, Media & Theatre Arts

Biography

Patricia Zimmer has been directing and writing plays for young and inter-generational audiences for more than 35 years. Some of her recent and ongoing professional interests include theatre for very young audiences (preschool), professional development for directors, the nature of creativity, religion and the arts, and new play development in Theatre for Young Audiences. She has served as a reader/adjudicator for two national playwriting competitions, the Bonderman Playwriting for Youth National Competition and the American Alliance for Education's Distinguished Play Award. She is a former editor of Stage of the Art, a major publication of AATE. She is an active member of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education as well as TYA/USA (the U.S. Center for ASSITEJ). She has been invited to direct and teach in South Korea, where she was a guest artist/instructor at the Korean National University of Arts. In Taiwan, she led workshops for the Taipei International Children's Festival. She is a recipient of EMU's Josephine Nevins Keal Award and the Provost's Artistic Recognition Award. She spent a recent sabbatical leave working on a playwriting project rooted in the history of Missouri sharecroppers in the late 1930s.

Education

• MFA, Directing, Florida State University, 1979
• BFA, Theatre, University of Evansville, 1976
• Additional graduate work in theatre at the University of New Orleans

Courses

• CTAR 222 Drama and Play in Human Experience
• CTAR 323 Improvising and Role Play
• CTAR 501 Foundations of Dramatic Experience
• CTAR 529 Touring to Young Audiences
• CTAR 627 The Playwright and the Young Audience
• CTAR 657 Improvisation
• CTAR 658 Theatre for Children
• Special topics in Story Theatre, Directing for Young Audiences, International Theatre for Young Audiences

Advising

• Applied Drama and Theatre for the Young, MA and MFA
• Children's Literature and Drama/Theatre for the Young, Interdisciplinary Major

Professional Affiliations

• American Alliance for Theatre and Education
• International Drama/Theatre in Education Association
• Theatre for Young Audiences- USA