Faculty and Staff
Theater & Dance
- Phone: (507) 222-4531
- Fax: (507) 222-5576
Faculty

Chair of Theater and Dance
Professor of English
Ruth Weiner is the Class of 1944 Professor of Theater and the Liberal Arts, as well as the Department of Theater and Dance Chair. She earned her B.S. and M.A. from the University of Wisconsin. Ruth teaches acting, directing and contemporary theater, and is also a faculty director of Players productions.
Mary Easter, Rae Schupack Nathan Professor of Dance and the Performing Arts, is a poet and writer as well as a dancer and choreographer. Mary received a bachelor of arts degree in music and French in 1962 from Sarah Lawrence College, a Master of Arts from Goddard College, and studied at the Eastman School of Music. She has presented her dance work in Minnesota and nationally for over 25 years, receiving a Bush Artist Fellowship in Choreography, a Minnesota Dance Alliance McKnight Fellowship, a Diverse Visions Video award from Intermedia Arts, and a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Artists. She has also served as director of Carleton’s African-American studies program.
David Wiles teaches Acting, Voice, Theater History and Dramatic Literature and has directed Polaroid Stories, The Exonerated and Summertime for Carleton Players. His acting credits include appearances at Yale Rep, Shakespeare & Company, Cincinnati Playhouse In The Park, and the Aquila Theatre Company. At Carleton he has appeared in Polaroid Stories, The Exonerated and Life is a Dream. He has trained with Shakespeare & Company and is currently a student of Patsy Rodenburg, Head of Voice at the National Theatre of London. His article, "Burdens of Representation: The Method and the Audience," appears in Method Acting Reconsidered. He holds a BA in History from the University of Cincinnati and a MFA in Acting from Yale.
MFA, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Teaching Experience: Professor, Dance and Theater, Macalester College; Professor, University of Minnesota; Chair of Dance Program, Macalester College; Instructor, Dance Education Initiative and Arts Courses for Educators, Perpich Center for Arts Education. Professional career accomplishments include maintaining an award winning dance company named The Flying Sisters Theater; her work has been presented both in the Twin Cities as well as nationally – and she was recently given the Sage Award for “Outstanding Performance’ and was selected “Best Choreographer” by the City Pages in 2005. Recent Presentation: Chinese Modern Dance in a Cross-Cultural Dance Curriculum, at the East-West Conference, Honolulu, HI, 2005.
Walter F. Wojciechowski serves as designer and technical director at Carleton. He received his M.F.A. from the University of Washington in Seattle. In addition to his technical positions, Walter supervises the Players' productions and teaches technical theater/design courses.
Jane Shockley, a noted modern dancer and founding member of the Zenon and New Dance Performance Laboratory, acts as an adjunct instructor in dance and assists in the direction of dance productions. Jane has been dancing for over twenty years, and counts among her movement influences modern dance, contact improvisation, Feldenkrais, and BMC.
Jennifer A. Bader holds a B.F.A. from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, where she had extensive training and performing opportunities. She augmented her training in New York and in San Diego. She returned to Minneapolis and joined the Minnesota Dance Theatre Company in 1992. Jennifer teaches the Young Children's, Adult and Performing Arts Divisions, is Assistant to the Artistic Director at MDT. She has also taught and performed at the Children's Theatre, and in Jennifer Hart’s 'In Dreams' as well as performed with other Independent Choreographers in Minneapolis. In August of 2002 Jennifer traveled to Yaroslavl to participate in Link Vostok's 'International Festival of Movement and Dance on the Volga'. There, she was Assistant to the Executive Director and taught Ballet. Jennifer also teaches in the dance department at Saint Olaf College.
Playwright, has had work produced across the United States, Canada and Europe. She was a founder of The Playwrights' Center and worked for eight years as The Guthrie Theater's Literary Manager and playwright-in-residence.
She will be teaching THEA 246-00: Playwriting
Staff

Lecturer in Theater Arts
Mary Ann Kelling acts as a costume designer and costume shop supervisor. She moved to Minnesota from Michigan, where she spent eight years as a costume designer and professor of theatre for the University of Michigan-Flint. She has designed costumes and make-up for theatre and dance in the Los Angeles area, Chicago and Detroit; Mary Ann's art work in photography, watercolor and drawing has been shown in galleries in Port Huron and Flint, Michigan. Mary Ann has a BA in studio art from St. Olaf College, MN, and an MFA in costume design from California State University in Long Beach.
Allison Koster serves as Lighting Designer and Assistant Technical Director. Allison holds an MFA in scenic and lighting design from the University of Idaho (Moscow), where twice her scenic design work advanced to the American College Theatre Festival's national competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In 2003/04 she was Visiting Professor of Design and Technology in Theatre/Dance at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Over the summer, she acts as technical advisor to the Uninvited Company in Northfield.















