Scholarship

Co-Author:

with David Popalisky on academic paper, “Futurismo: Linking Past and Present Through an Artistic Aesthetic,” Theatre Topics, Vol. 26, No. 3, November 2016
  - Presentation with David Popalisky, "Futurismo: Linking Past and Present Through an Artistic Aesthetic," Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, January 2014
  - Futurismo, a dance collaboration with David Popalisky for Images, Santa Clara University, February 2013

Stage Director:

City Lights Theater Company - Mothers and Sons 2019, In The Heights 2018, Calendar Girls 2016, Green Day's American Idiot 2016, M. Butterfly 2015, Monty Python's Spamalot 2014
Palo Alto Players - Million Dollar Quartet, September 2017

Lead Actor:

Antonio, The Merchant of Venice, Spring 2018 and Serge, Art for City Lights Theater Company, Fall 2014
Dr. Astrov, Uncle Vanya for Pear Ave Theatre, Feb/Mar 2016

Panelist:

Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas Conference 2017: "Diversity in Casting"
Theatre Bay Area Annual Conference: “Director and Designer Communication" 2016 and “Backstage Human Resources: The Director as HR Rep” 2015

Co-Instructor:

with Professor Popalisky “Performing Our Environment,” Winter 2016 - Recipients of National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant

Presenter:

International University Global Theatre Experience Conference "We Are The Futurists," Styria Austria, December 2015

Playwright:

Truce: A Christmas Wish From The Great War with Kit Wilder, City Lights Theater Company, Winter 2015

New International Performing Arts Institute Workshop: Movement for Directors, Summer 2019, Berlin, Germany

 

In 2014 Derek won the inaugural Theater Bay Area Outstanding Lighting Design award for In the Heights at Broadway-by-the-Bay. He has won several awards and honors including 5 Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Lighting Design on such shows as Sunday in the Park with George, Execution of Justice, Judevine, Stardust, and Woody Guthrie's American Song. He has received numerous Drama-Logue Critics awards for his lighting designs.

Recent Professional Work – Lighting design for:

 Lauda Adriana, World Premiere, Stephen Pelton Dance Theatre, San Francisco.

 A Spoonful Of Sherman, U.S. Premiere, The People in the Picture, West Coast Premiere, 3Below Theatre, San Jose.

 CATS, Sister Act, Peter and the Starcatcher, Chicago, Pacific Repertory Theatre, Carmel.

 Hair, Little Women the Musical, Of Mice and Men, and The Drowsy Chaperone, Western Stage, Salinas.

 Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Fantasticks, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, MPC Theatre Company, Monterey.

Creative highlights

Films:

A Day with Benton, screenplay by Barbara Means Fraser, produced by Michael Whalen, directed by Michael Whalen and Barbara Means Fraser. 2019.

Can’t Thread a Moving Needle, screenplay by Barbara Means Fraser, produced by Michael Whalen, directed by Michael Whalen and Barbara Means Fraser. 2015.
Platinum REMI Award from Houston International Film Festival for Women’s Issues.
(Grant through Avon Foundation for Women)

Plays:

Stay With Me Awhile, by Mary E. Johnson and Barbara Means Fraser, directed by Barbara Means Fraser, Rochester Civic Theatre, Rochester, MN, 2018. (Grant through Seasons Home Hospice of Rochester)

Can’t Thread a Moving Needle, Barbara Means Fraser, ©2008, Premiere at Mayer Theatre, October 1-2, 2008, Directed by Maren Lovgren in association with Student Life at Santa Clara University. Staged reading at Fess Parker Studio Theatre, May 22, 2008, Directed by Maren Lovgren, in association with Playwright’s Workshop at Santa Clara University and a grant from the Department of Justice.   
Additional performances at Mayer Theatre: October 2009, Directed by Maren Lovgren; October 2010, Directed by Kandace Arens; October 2011, Directed by Christine Keating; October 2012, Directed by Courtney Mohler. Menlo School: August 2012, Directed by Mary Hill. Notre Dame de Namur: August 2011, August 2012, August 2013, August 2014, Directed by Mary Hill. University of San Diego: May 2013, Directed by Meggie Zanger.

Breast Entanglements, Barbara Means Fraser, assisted by Erin Mahan, Sarah Grojean, Katie Craft, and Katie Carroll, ©2003.  Production by Serendipidy Productions in Austin, TX, October 27-November 11, 2006. World Premiere at City Lights Theatre of San Jose, CA, produced by Progressive Theatre Project and City Lights Theatre of San Jose, May 2005. Directed by Sarah Grojean. Staged Reading in the Black Swan Theatre at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in August 2003. Directed by Erin Mahan. Performance at Music and Dance Recital Hall at Santa Clara University in May 2006, directed by Sarah Grojean, produced by Residential Learning Communities through a Department of Justice Grant. First workshop production in the Music and Dance Recital Hall at Santa Clara University in April 2003. Directed by Erin Mahan.

Family, a New Musical with play by Barbara Means Fraser, music by Tony Asaro and Lyrics by Tony Asaro and Barbara Means Fraser, ©1999. First production at the Fess Parker Studio Theatre at Santa Clara University Theatre in May 1999. Directed by Greg Fritsch. Second production by Ryan Repertory Theatre at the Henry Warren Theatre in New York in October-November 2000. Directed by Barbara Parisi. 
CD of Family.  Produced by Kevin Kelly, composer: Tony Asaro, lyricists: Tony Asaro and Barbara Means Fraser, ©1999.

Directing:

Mary E. Johnson & Barbara Means Fraser, Stay with Me Awhile
Rochester Civic Theatre, Rochester, Minnesota. 2018 (Funded by a grant from Seasons Home Hospice)

Emily Mann, Execution of Justice
Mayer Theatre, Santa Clara University, 2008 (30^th Anniversary of Milk and Moscone murders. Grants from SCU Law School)

Tim Robbins, Dead Man Walking, (Artistic Director)
With Co-Directors: Jenn BeVard and Claire Larsen
Fess Parker Studio Theatre, SCU 2005 (Special project with SCU Law School and Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education)

Moises Kauffman & Members of Tectonic Theater Project, The Laramie Project
Mayer Theatre, SCU 2003

Phillip Hayes Dean, Paul Robeson
Aldo Billingslea, AEA, featured as Paul Robeson
Plano Repertory Theatre, Dallas, TX 1999

Jonathan Tollins, Twilight of the Golds
Fess Parker Studio Theatre,  Santa Clara University 1998

Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Tom Lasswell, AEA, featured as Willie Loman 
Ida Green Theatre, Austin College 1992

Dakota Theatre Caravan, Dakota Roads
Badlands Western Musical Co. 1983
(Co-Director with D. Scot Glasser)

Publication highlights

FRASER, Barbara M. “Hallie Flanagan and Cheryl Crawford: Women Pioneer Producers of 1930’s.” Women in American Musical Theatre, edited by Bud Coleman and Judith Sebesta, McFarland Press, May 2008.

FRASER, Barbara M.  “Sondheim’s Fosca: Distinctly American Romanticism,” FuJen Studies: Literature and Linguistics No. 30. 1997,  pp. 83-90.

FRASER, Barbara M., “Revisiting Greece: The Sondheim Chorus,” Stephen Sondheim: A Casebook edited by Joanne Gordon, New York: Garland Press, October 1997, pp. 223-249.

FRASER, Barbara M., “Performance Review of Heading South by Brian Thorstenson,” November 16, 1994., p. 296-297.

FRASER, Barbara M., “The Dream Shattered: America’s Seventies Musicals,” Journal of American Culture, Vol. 12, No. 3, Fall 1989, pp. 31-37.

Conference highlights

Presentation of scenes from Stay With Me Awhile
National Conference for Caregivers in Oncology.  San Diego, CA, November 2018

“Can’t Thread a Moving Needle: Stage to Film”
National JASPA Conference. San Francisco, CA, July 13, 2015

Execution of Justice Education Panels: 40^th Anniversary Milk & Moscone Murders
Discussion Panels: I Partnered with SCU Law School & Center for Performing Arts
  Jim Hammer & Ellen Kreitzberg, November 9, 2008
  Gerald Ulhmann & Ellen Kreitzberg, November 12, 2008
Discussion Panel for GALA
  Director & Actors: Talk Back, November 13, 2008
  Presentation for Osher: November 9, 2008
Santa Clara, CA, November 2008

Dead Man Walking Education Panels:
Discussion Panels:  I partnered with SCU Law School with grants through Bannan Institute for Jesuit Education and SCU Law School. Ellen Kreitzberg moderated panels after every performance with discussion of death penalty. Sister Helen Prejean attended final performance, talk back reception.
Santa Clara, CA  February 2005

Conference on Feminine Spirituality in Opera, Theatre and Dance
“Sondheim’s Fosca: Distinctly American Romanticism”
Taipei, Taiwan 1997

American Theatre in Higher Education National Convention
Panel Chair: Facing the Impact of AIDS
New York City 1989

Guest Artist-in-Residence: McNeese State University
  Public Critique of Nunsense
  Private Critique of Nunsense for cast and crew
  Lecture: “The Greek Chorus and the American Culture: Implications for production”
Lake Charles, LA 1988 

National Popular Culture Convention                                  
“First Culture, Then Community, Finally Chorus: Sondheim and Greece”
New Orleans, LA 1988

Karina Gutiérrez's work concentrates on the intersection of politics and performance, more specifically how digital interventions, institutionalization efforts, and historical narrative affect the development and sustainability of social and politically engaged performance companies and collectives in the Americas.

Gutiérrez’s canon of work centers on contemporary Chicanx and US Latinx theatre. She has published reviews in leading theatre journals such as Theatre Survey, The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Modern Drama (forthcoming), and Theatre Annual (forthcoming). Her article on the legacy of El Teatro Campesino (The Farmworker’s Theatre) is due later this year in the Latino Literature Encyclopedia for Students.

 Dialect Coaching (sample list):

• The Yoga Play at SF Playhouse and Laguna Playhouse
• Pride & Prejudice (World Premiere) at TheatreWorks
• Cabaret at SF Playhouse
• Outside Mullingar at TheatreWorks
• Awake & Sing at SCU with Guest Director Scott Kaiser of Oregon Shakespeare Festival
• The Elephant Man at CityLights
• Triangle (World Premiere) at TheatreWorks
• Sweeney Todd at San Jose Stage Company
• The House that Will Not Stand at Berkeley Repertory Theatre (World Premiere, Co-Production with Yale Repertory Theatre; Glickman Award Winner, 2015, Finalist TBA Awards – Overall Outstanding Production 2014)
• The Threepenny Opera at San Jose Stage (TBA Award Winner – Outstanding Production 2014)

Directing (sample list):

• The Wolves, CityLights Theatre, San Jose
• *A Thousand Splendid Suns (A.C.T./Theatre Calgary)(*Asst. Director)
• Legally Blonde, SCU Mayer Theatre
• When the Rain Stops Falling, Dragon Theater Company, Redwood City
• Venus in Fur, San Jose Stage Co.
• In the Next Room (or, the vibrator play), CityLights Theatre, San Jose
• The Other Place, Dragon Theater Co.
• The Tempest, SCU Mayer Theatre
• Footloose, West Valley Light Opera
• In the Heights, SCU Mayer Theatre

Scholarship (sample lst):

• Presentation Skills – Speaker’s Bureau, Northern California Innocence Project, November 2018
• Voice & Storytelling Workshop – Northern California Innocence Project, Restorative Justice Retreat, August 2016
• Coloring Outside the Lines – Dialect Workshop – ATHE Conference, Montreal, August 2015
• Guest Lecture – Social Justice & the Arts (Brian Thorstenson), May 2015
• A.C.T. Young Conservatory – Guest Lecture – Dialect, Mar 2015
• Student Life Voice Workshop, February 2015
• Ignatian Center – Western Conversations at Gonzaga University, October 2014

 

Choreographic Highlights:

THE WATER PROJECT (full evening group dance) with collaborators Scot Hanna-Weir (vocal score),
Derek Duarte (projected imagery) Kathy Aoki (animations) and Jeff Bracco (text). Upcoming
premiere at Santa Clara University, October 1 – 3, 2021

CONNECTIONS: ERASURES (group dance) Site-specific dance with Center for the Arts and Humanities
environmental landscape guest artist Gary Smith. Santa Clara University April 4, 2019

WELCOME TO CLARADISE SCU Theatrical Production, Santa Clara University, March 10-18, 2017

WALKING WITH WALT (group dance) 2015, Wally Schnalle original score.
Pasadena Dance Festival, Lineage Performance Center, Pasadena CA, January 18, 2015
Vision Series, Cowell Theatre, San Francisco, CA, March 7, 2015
DUMBO Dance Festival, Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY, October 9-10, 2015

FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDER SUICIDE WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF SCU Theatrical
Production, Santa Clara University, May 10-18, 2013

FUTURISMO (group dance), in collaboration with Jeff Bracco, SCU, February 7-10, 2013

SWIMMING UPSTREAM (solo dance) Beijing Community Theatre, Beijing, China, December 17, 2012

RETURN TO HJ JUNCTION (group dance) 2012
Vision Series, Cowell Theatre, San Francisco, CA, March 16, 2012
Pasadena Dance Festival, Lineage Performance Center, Pasadena CA, April 20-21, 2012
DUMBO Dance Festival, John Ryan Theatre, Brooklyn, NY, Sept. 28-29, 2012
MUSICAL MAVERICKS SERIES, Santa Clara University, October 27, 2012

MIGRATIONS (group dance) 2010, Jon Scoville original music
Santa Clara University outdoor – entire campus, September 24, 26, 2010
Five School lecture demo performances in South Bay, October- November,2010
Sustainability Teach-In with David Orr (excerpts), Santa Clara, CA, April 20, 2011.

WHEN IN DOUBT, KEEP THE LEG (duet) 2009, co-choreographed with Abigail Hosein
Saturday Salon, Shawl Anderson Dance Center, Berkeley, CA, November 7, 2009
Ahdanco Season, Shawl Anderson Dance Center, Berkeley, CA, February 19-21, 26-28, 2010
Emerging Choreographers Showcase, SpectorDance, Marina, CA, August 1, 2010

GO (group dance) 2009, True Rosaschi original music
Dancing in the Park, Golden Gate Park Bandshell, San Francisco, May 2, 2009

SCULPTED CHAOS (group dance) commissioned by Wing and a Prayer Dance Company, Reno, NV
Flights on Foot – Wing and a Prayer Company season, Spanish Springs High School Theatre,
Sparks, NV, March 27-28, 2009
Art Town – Dancing in the Park Series, Reno, NV, July 2, 2009

THE FATHERHOOD PROJECT (group dance) True Rosaschi original music
Santa Clara University, September 22, 23, 2006
Stanford University, November 4, 2006 (excerpts)
Marin Showcase Theatre, San Rafael, CA May 11, 13, 2007

JOHN DAVID DANCES (group dance)
Alumni Concert, Stanford University, Palo Alto, November 6, 2004
Brand Library Series, Los Angles, May 8, 2005
Monterey Dance Festival, Monterey, May 22, 2005

BARRED FROM LIFE (solo) full evening work (integrated video imagery) about wrongful conviction
created in collaboration with Cookie Ridolfi, True Rosaschi original score
Santa Clara University, March 31, April 4, 2004
AALS Legal Conference, San Diego, May 1, 2004
University of San Francisco, September 23, 26, 2004
Vogel Hall, Milwaukee, WI, March 11,12, 2005
Loyola University Chicago, March 14, 16, 2005
The Attic, Santa Cruz, April 9, 10, 2005
Mountain View Center of Performing Arts, Mountain View, October 27, 2005
deSaisset Museum, Santa Clara University, May 3, 2006
Making Art, Making Change Conference, San Francisco, August 19, 2006
Mayer Theatre, Santa Clara University, March 28, 2008

FLAMES OF PRAYER (group dance) commissioned by Western Ballet, Mountain View, CA.
Western Ballet Spring Concert, Palo Alto, June 10, 11, 2003

ENTER SOFTLY, CROSS QUICKLY (group dance)
And It Begins, 848 Community Space, San Francisco, September 13-15, 2002
Harvest, Mission Dance Theatre, San Francisco, November 1, 2, 2002
Dancin’ Downtown, San Jose, April 27, 2003
Lineage Dance Concert, Santa Clara University, May 3, 2003
Brand Library Series, Los Angeles, May 8, 2005

TWO PLUS (duet)
Mills College Studio One Concert, Oakland, May 5, 2001
Mid-summer Arts Institute, Santa Cruz, July 23, 2001
Alumni Concert, Stanford University, Palo Alto, November 10, 2001
West Wave Dance Festival, San Francisco, July 17, 2005

Publications and Conference presentations:

“Futurismo – Linking Past and Present Through an Artistic Aesthetic,” written in collaboration with
Jeffrey Bracco. Theatre Topics, November 2016, Volume 26, Number 3.

Physics World, "Dancing with Physics." Co-authored with Richard P. Barber. Article about Physics of Dance Class. Institute of Physics Publishing. pgs. 29-32. January 2008.

Physics of Dance workshop for High School teachers, co-presenter with Prof. Rich Barber, Florida State
University. 2019, Panama City FL.

Dance Studies Association Conference, “Ballet Fathers: Fame, Fortune or Fatherhood First,”
Northwestern University, 2019, Evanston, IL.

International Research Conference, AIRDanza and Association des Chercheurs en Dance, “Philippe
Taglioni – Ballet Father Finesses Family Fortune,” Universitat Salzburg, 2019, Salzburg, Austria,
Society of Dance History Scholars/Congress on Research in Dance Conference, “Whose Dance is it
Anyway? - Cultivating Awareness through University Practices" co-presentation with Lauren
Baines and Courtney Mohler, 2016, Pomona College.

National Society for Experiential Education, 45 th Annual Conference, “Walking Across CA – Unraveling
Wonder” co-presented with Marianna Moore, SCU student. 2016 San Antonio, TX.
Hawaii International Conference - Arts and Humanities, “Futurismo: Linking Past and Present Through an
Artistic Aesthetic,” co-presented with Jeffrey Bracco. 2014, Honolulu, HI.

Congress on Research in Dance conference, “Barred from Life – Building Community Through
Collaboration.” 2005 Tallahassee, Florida.

American Cultural Association and the Popular Culture Association combined conference, “Dad’s Don’t
Dance (or do they?),” 2003, New Orleans, LA.

Not Just Any Body – A Global Conference to Promote Health and Excellence for Dance and Dancers,
“Defining the Performing Artist: How a Health Psychology Course Integrates into Performing Arts
Training,” co-authored with Dr. Marie Herbert, 1999, Toronto, Canada.

Belize International Dance Festival and Forum, “Dance in Education – Creating Fertile Ground.” 1998
Belize City, Belize, Central America.

Congress on Research in Dance conference, “No to Objectivity? - Yvonne Rainer’s No Manifesto and the
Challenge of Autobiography in Dance Performance.” 1996, Greensboro, North Carolina.

Awards:

• Center for the Arts and Humanities, SCU Faculty Fellow for The Water Project, April 2019
• Silicon Valley Creates, Artist Laureate Award, Onstage – for sustained choreographic achievement, 2015.
• Bernard J. Hubbard Collaboration Award presented by the College of Arts and Sciences, SCU, 2013.
• CLEA Creativity Award for Barred from Life, American Association of Law Schools - Clinical Legal
  Education, for performance about critical legal and humanitarian issues. 2005.

Leticia Ridley is a theatre historian and performance studies scholar whose research works at the intersections of Black feminism, Black Studies, performance theory, and Black digital humanities. Her research interests include Black theatre and performance, American popular culture, and sports. She is currently working on her book project, tentatively titled Hypervisibility Renderings: Black Feminist Performance in the 20^th and 21^st Centuries, which examines contemporary Black women’s performance cultures, or the ways that Black women artists, athletes, and musicians (who all occupy the position of celebrity) make culture that articulates their definitions of self and constructs alternative frameworks for themselves and other Black women to occupy. You can find her writing in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, and forthcoming in Journal of American Drama and Theatre and A Routledge Anthology of Sport Plays.

Poetry: