Teaching, Lineage, and the Craft of Acting

In the School of Drama, endowed professorships support both recruitment and training at scale, while honoring legacies that have shaped the art form.

Quin Gordon, the Malcolm MacDougal Brown Distinguished Professor in Drama, reviews hundreds of auditions each cycle, ensuring that each applicant receives meaningful attention regardless of outcome. “We feel that any applicant that wants to be seen gets a fair chance,” he said.

Inside the classroom, teaching is grounded in rigor, lineage, and craft, but also in the development of artistic self-trust. A student, in this framing, does not leave with a single method, but with a set of tools and the ability to think as an artist.

“I strive to expose our students to a wide set of technical tools that they can either take or leave,” Gordon explained. “A student should leave our school with a strong sense of self, trust in their impulses, and a clear process of working.”

Sara Becker, the Patricia Athey Brown Distinguished Professor in Drama, teaches acting, Shakespeare, and voice. She emphasizes curiosity and belonging as central outcomes for her program, bolstered by the proceeds from her professorship.

“Shakespeare can be really intimidating to people — both for the material itself and how it’s held up culturally,” Becker said. “To let them know they belong in it and that they can rise to the challenge is enormously empowering. I think that this work has the power to help students discover and express their own poetic voices — helping them fall in love with language, and to see themselves as part of a living, breathing artistic tradition they have the power to carry forward.”

The School of Drama will soon see a new endowed professorship recipient as well. Greg Walter, longtime professor and assistant dean in the School of Drama, and the recipient of the Gerald Freedman Professorship, retired at the end of the 2025–26 academic year.

“His passion for the work, his dedication to students, his enormous artistry, and his unmistakable warmth have shaped generations of performers,” said School of Drama Dean John Langs of Walter. “There are artists working on stages across the country and throughout the world who carry Greg’s teaching in their breath, in their voice, and in their courage.”

The Gerald Freedman Professorship, named for the legendary former School of Drama dean, will soon be at work helping another professor prepare the next generation of actors and directors for careers and lives of distinction.

In Drama, endowed professorships are threads in a longer tapestry. They connect past and present, methods and impulses, and help students see themselves as part of a tradition they are ready to carry forward.