Stephanie Daventry French

Biography

Stephanie Daventry French is a director, dramaturg and teacher.  She has directed over 40 productions combining physical and experimental theatre techniques with Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis.  She collaboratively devised and wrote the final production scripts for four original plays: Sold!, Love & Other MisHaps, Lewd Acts in Exchange for Money or Other Consideration and On Impact: A Community of Voices on the War in Iraq.  She was director and dramaturg for fourteen premieres of new plays. New York: Merchant of Venice (Cardozo Law School) and Regional: Rapture, Blister, Burn, The Threepenny Opera, and A Streetcar Named Desire (San Diego Repertory Theatre), A Bayou Legend (an Opera) and Children of Broadway (San Diego Civic Chorale); The Magdalen (The Next Stage).  She is Professor at East Stroudsburg University where heads up the Acting for Theatre, Television and Film and Directing Tracks and served as department chair for 6 years from 2008-2014.  At ESU's she has directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Jackie and Me, Spiked Heels, Top Girls, Sold!, Blithe Spirit, Polaroid Stories, Tartuffe, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Hobbit, Two Weeks with the Queen, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, The Phantom Tollbooth and Alice Through the Looking Glass.  She recently co-wrote, with Philip Bennett, a book linking the mechanisms of acting to yoga and contemporary cognitive science and psychology, Experiencing Stanislavsky Today:  Training and Rehearsal for the Psychophysical Actor Routledge/Taylor and Francis December 24, 2015.

Education

M.F.A. Directing, University of California, San Diego
B.A. Acting and Directing, San Francisco State
Certificate in Stanislavsky Acting, SFTA

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

The Stanislavsky System including his final Active Analysis
Devising
Physical Theatre and Improvisation Techniques

Personal Interests

Soccer and Ultimate Frisbee
Yoga and Meditation
Gardening & Nature

Books

Photos