The community is invited to attend a free brown bag lunch and learn lecture, “All the World’s a Stage,” Monday, February 15, 12:30 p.m., featuring British stage director and international professor and lecturer Richard Digby Day, and founder and co-artistic director of Theatre Masters in New York, Julia Hansen, in Maynard Hall’s Guthery Community Room on the Marion campus.
Hansen will interview Day during their visit to campus, asking probing questions about character development for stage and film, the differences between acting and directing, why classical theatre study is important for actors? and much more.
Considered to be a contemporary of Academy Award winning British actor Ian McKellen (X-Men, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbitt), Day is credited with discovering actors Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter), and Hugh Grant.
In addition to their public brown bag lecture at Ohio State Marion, Day and Hansen will speak with a number of students in writing and film classes on the Marion campus as well as students at Marion Harding High School. This event is co-sponsored by Fahey Bank and Marion Industrial Center.
Julia Hansen is founder and Co-Artistic Director of Theater Masters, was formerly President of the Drama League of New York where she conceived and administered the Directors Project, a national training program for young directors. Board services have included The Acting Company, The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation, and The Lincoln Center Theatre. She is proud to have a directing award in her name that has been given to such luminaries as Mike Nichols, Jack O’Brien, Dan Sullivan, Des McAnuff and Michael Mayer, an alumnus of the directing program she started and Tony winner for Spring Awakening. She has created performances honoring celebrities such as Andrew Lloyd Webber, Hal Prince, Liz Smith, John Kander and Fred Ebb. For Theater Masters she created the National MFA Playwrights Program and Festival and Visionary Playwrights Program. Alumni of programs she has created include the head of the Yale School of Drama, the head of the ACT at Harvard, Pulitzer finalists, Tony and Obie winners and writers for Homeland, Madam Secretary and New Girl. Julia grew up in Marion, Ohio, the daughter of J. Malcolm Strelitz, a well-known Marion attorney and industrialist who served as Chairman of the Marion Power Shovel and Marion Metal Products companies.
Richard Digby Day is a British stage director and international professor and lecturer. He is particularly well known for his work in the classical theater, and is considered to have a special penchant for the plays of William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. He is Vice President of the Shaw Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and has staged more productions of Shaw’s work than any other living director. He is noted, particularly, for his productions of Stephen Sondheim musicals. Digby Day was educated at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He has been Artistic Director of five major regional theaters in the UK. Additionally, his work has been seen in the West End and on tour extensively throughout the UK, Canada, Denmark, and Ireland. Particularly successful were his touring productions of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music and Company, Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple, Somerset Maugham’s Our Betters, and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. He has taught and lectured in universities in the UK and North America. Since 2003, he has been Principal of the London Dramatic Academy of Fordham University. He also served on the Drama League of New York’s advisory board and helped found their Directors Project. Currently Digby Day is developing a show for Dame Joan Plowright. He has worked with many of Britain’s greatest actors including Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, and Honor Blackman. He is credited with discovering actors Ralph Fiennes and Hugh Grant.
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