COLETTE SEARLS
Assistant Professor

Since joining the UMBC faculty in 2002, Professor Searls has directed a mixture of classical and contemporary works, and created two original mixed-media puppet plays: Fanto, a Mysterious Vaudeville and BURIED (National Finalist -- Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival). She has directed several adult-oriented puppet productions around the country including Lunatique Fantastique’s Fixed Boundary (“Best of the San Francisco Fringe Festival" 2003), and recently served as puppet consultant for Fiddler on the Roof at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts. Other recent directing credits include Maria Irene Fornés' musical Promenade and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the University of California at Irvine. Performance credits include the premiere of Women Behind the Walls, co-created with incarcerated California women, and Vaudevillo!, an original vaudeville of clowns, masked characters and puppets at Madrid’s La Sala Mirador Theatre.

B.A. English, University of California, Berkeley
M.F.A. Directing, University of California, Irvine

Contact: csearls@umbc.edu