Thomas Lindblade was the National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professor at Colorado College, and was the college's inaugural T. William and Nancy Bryson Schlosser Professor of the Arts. He taught in Colorado College's Department of Theatre and Dance, where he served fourteen years as Chair between 1995 and 2009. He hails from Minnesota and came to Colorado College after receiving his B.A. fromthe University of Wisconsin (1979), his M.A. from the University of Minnesota (1982), and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in Drama and Humanities (1989).

Since 1982, Professor Lindblade has been an active theatre professional in the San Francisco Bay Area, directing, musical directing, conducting, and dramaturgy over forty productions for TheatreWorks, the Magic Theatre, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Solo Mio Festival (Climate Theatre), and the California Shakespeare Festival. His most recent productions in California are TheatreWorks' Makeover (director, world premiere), Smoky Joe's Café (musical director), Floyd Collins (musical director/conductor), and You Can't Take It With You (director) and California Shakespeare Festival's The Tempest (composer). Present work includes a new collaboration with Ben-Amots based on Borges' The Gospel According to Mark, and monographs on the staging of Philip Glass' operas and the history of George Coates Performance Works, respectively.  

 

Born and in Great Britain and trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech & Drama, London, Manley was an actor for 9 years doing seasons of regional theatre plus TV and radio work. In 1972, he co-founded the EMMA Theatre Company, a pioneering regional small-scale theatre company taking theatre to villages and small communities far from conventional theatre centers. Until 1999, he was the Artistic Director of various British regional repertory theatres. He was the director of the MFA Acting Program at Ohio University from 1999 to 2003 and joined CC in 2003.

His productions at Colorado College have focused on site-specific work and a continuing exploration of the performance possibilities of the work of Samuel Beckett. Other productions include Absurd Plus - a devised exploration of absurdist drama old and new in a loading dock of the deserted Gas Utilities building, downtown Colorado Springs; site-specific productions of Bash and Autobahn by Neil LaBute, a triple site-specific bill of Shepard & Chaikin's Tongues, Savage/Love and Angel's Monologue; Attempts on Her Life by Martin Crimp - all over the Gas Utilities building; Drinking In America by Eric Bogosian; and Antigone by Sophocles.

  

 

Donna received her undergraduate degree in Art education from Edinboro University with a theater focus in acting/mime. She earned her professional MFA degree from Ohio University in production design.  After teaching at Penn State University and heading the MFA design program at Michigan State for 18 years, she began her career at Colorado College as the set, lighting, prop and makeup designer. Donna has more than 250 set and lighting designs for theater, film, opera and dance to her credit. Donna also consulted/ designed for public theaters and major art centers in nearly a dozen states, taught classes at various community colleges and Bedford College in London, England, and provided frequent workshops for national/local conferences and numerous organizations. Donna authored numerous articles on color theory, design, painting and stage construction for various magazines, and a book for Prentice Hall introducing a totally new approach to make up. Having earned the coveted United Scenic Artist’s union card, she worked for two professional production companies on either coast and was known as the “spatter queen”. Donna was honored to be the Guest of the Bulgarian government, for their “National Theater Festival”, was proud to be selected as one of 14 “leaders in scenic design” to spearhead a program for the future of design in educational theater, and one of 16 fortunate scenic designers in the country invited to be included in an extended workshop with the famous design visionary, Josef Svoboda.                                             

As an artist, Donna’s interests expanded beyond theater design. She was involved with the city of Colorado Springs for many years, as liaison to the “sister city program” working with artists from other countries, was an invited participant in the “Citizens Academy for Community Design”, and worked with city planners to design parks that included her own sculptures.  As the chair of the “Arts Commission of the Pikes Peak Region”, she initiated the transformation of the downtown area with an emphasis on public art, encouraging murals and the annual “Art on the Streets” sculpture program. Donna, an active “architect” with many structures to her credit, (Including a unique home in the mountains constructed from recycled stage sets!) chaired a building committee focused on the  creative concept of “arts factory.”  That “dream” became an exciting reality as she worked with the signature architect Antoine Predock, and contributed to the design of the  Cornerstone Arts Center, one of her proudest accomplishments.