Kirstin "Fluffy" Blake, Production Manager/Lighting Designer for the Performance Center and the Theatre Department, holds an MFA in Lighting and Scenic Design from the University of Southern Mississippi and a BS in Communications (Journalism) from Kennesaw State University. As a professional designer for 15 years, her work has been seen in Chicago, Seattle and Washington D.C. as well as Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Having managed and designed for opera, puppetry, television, dance, drama, concerts and trade-shows, Fluffy’s most rewarding experience in theatre has been the training of many young technicians and designers currently working all over the country. She looks forward to continuing that legacy here at SMU and is very excited to join the Saint Mary’s community.

Fluffy’s professional credits include resident design work, both scenic and lighting, for Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre, Highland Repertory Theatre and the Asheville Lyric Opera. Her favorite freelance design credits include the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Kids Company, the Trinity Irish Dancers, the Indiana Ballet, Ballet Warraba, Star Plaza and the Diana Wortham Theatre productions. Other production credits include Shockheaded Peter, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Chicago Opera Theatre, Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Office location:

Mailing Address:

Saint Mary's University of Minnesota
700 Terrace Heights #83
Winona, MN 55987-1399

507-457-1720

Alice Flo, Costume Shop Supervisor. Alice has supervised the building of the costumes for the Theatre Arts department productions since 2002 and oversees the costume section of Theatre Crafts and Theatre Production as well as work-study students. Alices dedication to her students and quality work as well as an organized shop makes her one of our most valued yet underappreciated workers.

Office location:

PC 20

Mailing Address:

Saint Mary's University of Minnesota
700 Terrace Heights #83
Winona, MN 55987-1399

507-457-1605

 Tony James, Adjunct Instructor in London since 2003, trained at Central School of Speech and Drama as an actor. After graduating, he toured his self-penned One-Man Shows around the UK which culminated in the commission of 12 radio plays for the BBC World Service and Radio 4. He has worked with Deborah Warner, George Murcell, Richard Eyre, and Peter Hall. He co-founded Cracked Mirror T.C. which tours the UK and Europe, performing Classics such as Lorca's YERMA, Ibsen's PEER GYNT and Moliere's LA MALADE IMAGINAIRE as well as premiering new works and supporting new writers. After founding the DOC Theatre Club, a fringe theatre above a London pub which has produced over 200 plays, he began working in Drama Schools such as RADA, Central, Arts Educational and Rose Bruford where he began working on the ATA (American Theatre Arts) Course with Steve Dykes in September 2000. He much enjoys working with the Minnesota students which provide him with a challenging and fresh, if somewhat bewildering, insight into the mind of would-be American actors. For Saint Mary’s, Steve teaches Acting: The British Approach in London.

Patrick Sutton, Adjunct Instructor in Ireland since 1995, is Director of Ireland’s premiere drama school, The Gaiety School of Acting. The school was founded by Joe Dowling in 1986 (Joe, a former artistic director of The Abbey Theatre, Dublin is currently artistic director of The Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis and acts as Chairman of the school).

Educated at St. Gerard’s School, Bray, Co Wicklow and Glenstal Abbey, Limerick, Patrick went on to train at Dartington College of Arts, England, where he graduated in 1980 with an honours theatre degree. He has worked extensively as an actor in Ireland, England and France. Patrick is a former Director of Plymouth Action Community Theatre, The National Festival of Youth Theatres, Ireland, Wexford Arts Centre, and Artistic Director of TEAM Theatre Company.

In Wexford, Patrick developed a wide range of significant arts initiatives, most notably bringing the work of playwright Billy Roche to national attention. Patrick has directed the first plays of a wide range of writers including Nell McCafferty (Sheep Shite and Desolation for Passion Machine’s Songs of the Reaper Festival), and Ferdia McAnna (Big Mom for The Project Arts Centre). At TEAM Theatre Company he commissioned, directed and toured new work nationally from 1989-1993. Patrick continues to direct theatre on a freelance basis as well as regularly directing the plays he has commissioned at The Gaiety School of Acting for the graduating classes in Dublin’s Project Arts Centre.

Most recently, Patrick has directed Ronnie Drew of The Dubliners in a one man show with music about Ireland and some of its great writers. In 1994, Patrick was chairman of the visual arts committee of the internationally acclaimed original Beckett Festival produced by Dublin’s Gate Theatre.

At The Gaiety School of Acting since 1994, Patrick has, with GSA founder, Joe Dowling developed and expanded the school to its current position where over 1500 students are involved in a wide range of courses ranging from our intensive two year full time actor training programme to a range of courses available to students from overseas. These include The Original Theatre Project, our one month Irish Theatre Summer School and our three week January Irish Theatre program. The full time actor training program boasts unprecedented graduate success with our actors appearing in all of Ireland’s theatres, in film and television nationally and internationally and in theatres across England including The Royal Shakespeare Company and The National Theatre in London. The school is based in the centre of Dublin city’s cultural quarter, Temple Bar. Our range of part-time courses takes place at other centres around the country.

Patrick is currently involved in a series of strategic developments for the school. These include developing a three year honours acting degree with Dublin City University and reinstating on the site of Dublin’s first theatre of 1662- Smock Alley Theatre as a state of the art performance space and resource for the school, the theatre community at large in both Dublin, throughout Ireland and beyond. Patrick is the director of COMMUNICATE, a communications company working at a senior level in politics, industry and the arts. Acting as a consultant, Patrick works with clients as diverse as Riverdance, The Department of Foreign Affairs and The Law Society of Ireland. Patrick has an extensive portfolio of private clients.

He was a government appointee to the board of The Irish Arts Council (1997-2005) where he acted as chairman of the grants committee and the business and finance subcommittee, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, (1998-2003) where he acted as chairman of the human resources committee, and most recently the international Irish arts promotion agency, Culture Ireland (2005- ). Patrick is a former board member of Storytellers Theatre Company and The Project Arts Centre. He is currently a board member of The Lisa Richards Actors agency, The Gaiety School of Acting, Irish Theatre Classics and has recently joined the board of The Arts for Peace Foundation. And throughout 2005 Patrick was a judge for The Irish Times Theatre awards.

As a writer (Tony Barrow), he had his first two plays, ISCARIOT AND MAGDALEN presented at The Dublin International Fringe Festival with the former also playing in Boston, Washington D.C. and Atlanta and at The International Festival of one man plays in Moldova, Eastern Europe. He has just completed ANACONDA ASHES, a new play about two brothers, the mining of copper and violence in Butte Montana in 1897. He is currently working on the second part of The Butte trilogy – ‘Bullets from Butte’ and is also writing a short opera for one dissenting voice and a cello.

The Gaiety School of Acting, Director
Meeting House Square
Temple Bar
Dublin 2

Telephone 001 353 1 6799277
Fax 011 353 1 6799568
Cell 011 353 87 2255275
E Mail suttonp@indigo.ie
www.gaietyschool.com