Theatre & Dance Office Information
Department Chair: Dr. T.J. Gerckens
Location: 30 S. Grove St.
Hours: Monday – Friday (8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.)
Contact: Dawn Horne, Administrative Assistant & Director of Recruitment
Phone: 614-823-1657
Email: horne2@otterbein.edu
Faculty
T.J. Gerckens
Associate Professor, & Department Chair
T.J. Gerckens (Lighting Design) is the lighting design faculty member at Otterbein University, a USA829 Union Lighting Designer, and proud Otterbein Alum. At Otterbein he has designed the lighting for productions such as Fiddler on the Roof, Is He Dead?, Dance 2015: Famously Yours, Dance 2014: Tell-Tale Poe, and Into the Woods. As a freelance lighting designer T.J. has been part of the design team for the Tony Award winner and MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Mary Zimmerman for the last 23…
Stella Kane
Professor, Director of Musical Theatre, Director of Dance
Stella Hiatt Kane has been a member of the Otterbein faculty since 1989 and Director of Dance since 1996, a member of the BalletMet Academy faculty, and the founding Artistic Director of JazzMet. Ms. Kane has been a member of the national companies of “Sugar” and Bob Fosses’ “Dancin’” and a member of the national and international companies of The American Dance Machine. She has made television appearances in productions such as PBS’ “Dance In America” and “The Ann Reinking…
Melissa Lusher
Professor
Melissa Lusher is a tenured Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance where she teaches acting, speech, and dialects. She serves as the Associate Chair of the Department, the Director of the B.F.A. Acting program, the Resident Speech and Dialects Coach, and the Workshop/Advanced Directing Coordinator. In 2018, Melissa was honored with Otterbein’s Teacher of the Year award. She is a certified teacher of the Michael Chekhov acting technique through the Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium. Favorite directing credits…
Rebecca White
Professor
Rebecca White is originally from Minnesota and joined the faculty at Otterbein in the fall of 2007. Rebecca works primarily with students in the BFA Design Technology program and teaches courses in costume history, design, crafts, and makeup. Part of Rebecca's work is modeling professional practice by designing the costumes for 2-4 productions each school year, with students as collaborators, research assistants, wardrobe, and technologists who make the costumes. Rebecca is a member of the Otterbein Senate and serves the…
Lori Kay Harvey
Associate Professor
Lori Kay Harvey, Associate Professor of Musical Theatre, serves as the music director and conductor for the production program and the BFA musical theatre program at Otterbein University. Recent projects include Big Fish, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Adding Machine, Damn Yankees, The Addams Family, Fiddler on the Roof, RENT, Into the Woods, Sweet Charity, Dames At Sea, The Full Monty, Les Misérables, How to Succeed…Trying and Spring Awakening. She teaches the Freshmen Musical Theatre Ensemble, Junior Musical Theatre Studio, and the…
Lenny Leibowitz
Associate Professor
Since Lenny’s arrival in Westerville, Lenny has directed Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, Into the Woods, Clybourne Park, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Top Girls, Fiddler on the Roof, and Adding Machine: A Musical. As founding artistic director of Marvell Rep, OffBroadway, Lenny directed 11 productions, including The Threepenny Opera, which received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Revival of a Musical. Other New York directing credits include the world premiere of Brian Yorkey’s Making Tracks, which ran Off-Broadway at Rockefeller Center’s Taipei Theater. Lenny has directed at…
Mark “Coach” Mineart
Associate Professor
Mark has been a successful member of the professional theatre community for over 30 years, working as an actor, director, and fight director. Mark has appeared on and off Broadway with such stars as Denzel Washington and Kelsey Grammer as well as worked at many of the nation's most well respected and award-winning regional theatres. Classically trained, he has portrayed many of the great characters of world theatre, among them Cyrano de Bergerac, Macbeth, Long John Silver in Treasure Island,…
Patrick Stone
Associate Professor
Patrick Stone began his tenure as the Technical Director at Otterbein in the Fall of 2014. He spent the previous seven years at the University of Arkansas as the Faculty Technical Director. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion and a Bachelors of Arts from Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. He teaches classes in stage-craft, properties design and construction, metal working, technical direction, wood working, and motion scenery. Patrick also enjoys consulting…
Thom Warren
Associate Professor
Thom Christopher Warren serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and made his Otterbein directorial debut last spring with “Thoroughly Modern Millie," followed by "Big Fish" in the fall of 2018. Thom comes to campus directly from the Broadway company of Disney’s “The Lion King” having worked for over fifteen years both onstage (Scar, Zazu, Timon, Pumbaa, and Ed) and off, having toured with the show as Resident Director and serving on the creative team alongside…
Staff
Part Time Faculty in Theatre & Dance