|
TCU DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE
FACULTY MEMBER
ALAN SHORTER
Associate Professor
B.A. – Indiana University at Bloomington
M.F.A. – Minnesota State University
American Federation of Musicians
Professor Alan Shorter happily joins the faculty of
TCU after having served as coordinator for the musical
theatre BFA programs at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens
Point and St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.
He attended Moorhead State University, received his
B.A. in Theatre & Drama from Indiana University,
Bloomington, and holds an M.F.A. in Directing from Minnesota
State University. Alan’s work as composer, music
director, stage director, conductor and pianist has
been seen at numerous regional theatres and in national
tours, including The 1940’s Radio Hour,
The Desert Song, A Christmas Carol
and The Student Prince. His Midwest credits
include Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, The Cricket Theatre,
The Ordway, Hey City Stage, Theatre de la Jeune Lune,
and the Tony-Award-winning Children’s Theatre
Company of Minneapolis (where he was both Artistic Associate
and Composer-in-Residence).
Alan has served as stage director for productions of
Wings, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret,
Children of Eden, The Good Doctor,
Tartuffe, . . . And They Dance Real Slow
in Jackson, Nancy Drew: Girl Detective,
The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, Sherlock
Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars, Sylvia
Plath: A Memoir, Antigone, The Diviners,
Lonely Planet, and A Night in November.
He has written over a dozen original scores for the
theatre, including Spinning into Butter, Hamlet,
Dracula, The Hobbit, The Voice of the
Prairie, The Troubles: Children of Belfast,
Strega Nona, The Velveteen Rabbit,
and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (produced
in Russian at the Central Children’s Theatre of
Moscow). He has been music director for over one hundred
productions, ranging from Yeston’s Phantom
and A Little Night Music to Aida and Seussical.
Alan’s adaptation of Tomie dePaola’s
Oliver Button Is a Sissy
for the concert stage has been performed by over fifty
major choruses nationwide and was featured at Carnegie
Hall in New York City and the Kennedy Center in Washington,
DC. The concert work was also the centerpiece for the
documentary “Oliver Button is a Star!”
produced by Emmy Award winning producers Dan Hunt and
John Scagliatti. The documentary aired nationally on
PBS and has been given the National Association of Multicultural
Education’s Media Award, Action for Media’s
Pixi Award, the National Gay & Lesbian Journalist
Association’s Excellence in Journalism Award,
and Excellence in Media’s Silver Angel Award.
“The Great Ends of the Church,”
a choral work, premiered in Dallas, TX, in June of 2003.
That same year, the Heartland Chorus in Kansas City
commissioned and performed “Country Angel
Christmas.” “Changing Hearts,”
a work for men’s chorus, seven soloists, and small
orchestra, debuted in Washington, DC, and Montreal in
2006 by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC.
In June, 2006, it was featured in their 25th Anniversary
Concert at The Kennedy Center.
Alan has also appeared on stage as Father Alan in Nunsense
II: The Second Coming and the world premiere of
Sister Amnesia’s Country Western Nunsense Jamboree,
for which he was music director and pianist for the
original cast recording. Other favorite roles include
Noel Coward in Oh, Coward!, Hermann
van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank, and Jimmy
Powers in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.
E-Mail Alan Shorter
|
