Beth Watkins

Title: Professor Emeritus
Degrees: B.A., Moorhead State University; M.F.A., University of Texas

Email: bwatkins@allegheny.edu

Beth Watkins, Professor of Communication Arts/Theatre, joined the Allegheny faculty in 1986.  Her teaching interests include acting, directing, dramaturgy, devising and adaptation.  Since 2003, she has co-led experiential learning seminars to Stratford-upon-Avon and London, exploring theatre, art and culture in the U.K.

For the Playshop Theatre, the producing arm of the department, she directs annually.  Recent productions include A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration, Anna in the Tropics, and Romeo and Juliet.  She has devised productions with student actors and local artists, including Marginalia in Sonnet Form, Chewing Your Fingers to the BonePlaying Dirty and (Ghost)Light.   Professor Watkins has directed over sixty theatre and opera productions and published articles and performance reviews in Theatre JournalTheatre Topics, and The Journal of Medical Humanities.  Her chapter “Chick Joint: Adapting (To) Life Behind Bars” appeared in Performing Adaptations:  Essays and Conversations on the Theory and Practice of Adaptation by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.