Meet the Staff

Meet Our Staff

Tamara Goldbogen, Director

Tamara Goldbogen teaches theatre for youth and creative drama and also serves as director of the departmental outreach program Shakespeare-in-the-Schools. Tamara recently co-directed Alice for Pitt Rep and a touring production of Tomato Plant Girl for Shakespeare-in-the-Schools.

Prior to her work at the University of Pittsburgh, Tamara was the Education Partnerships Coordinator for the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis. Other work includes Spoleto Festival USA, University of Hawaii, and founding director of South Carolina Young Playwrights. She serves on the boards of Pittsburgh International Children's Theatre, Pittsburgh Public School Arts Committee, and Theatre for Young Audiences/USA.

Tamara leads a study abroad program that follows the ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival around the world. She holds an MFA in Drama and Theatre for Youth from the University of Texas at Austin.

Attilio "Buck" Favorini, Founder

Attilio Favorini is Professor of Theatre Arts, where he founded the Department of Theatre Arts and served as its chair for many years. He founded the Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival, for which he was Founding Director. He edited Theatre Survey from 1969-1979 and also edited Voicings: Ten Plays from the Documentary Theatre (1995.) His play Steel/City was voted Best Production of 1992 by the Pittsbugh City Paper and In the Garden of Live Flowers won the David Mark Cohen playwriting award in 2002. Palgrave Macmillan recently published his Memory in Play: From Aeschylus to Sam Shepard (2008.)

Allie Wagner, Production Coordinator

Graduate SITS Staff

Rohini Chaki

Rohini Chaki is a second year PhD student and a 2009-2010 Provost's Humanities Fellow. She received her MA in English from Jadavpur University in Calcutta, India. She assisted in the editing of an anthology of modern Indian theatre, as well as a concise encyclopedia of Indian theatre, published by Oxford University Press in 2009. During her stint as a sub-editor for the largest English language daily in eastern India, Rohini travelled to conflict zones and documented political protest movements in West Bengal. Her current research interests lie, broadly, in Bengali theatre and the performance of politics. English theatre acting credits include: Top Girls (Marlene), The Glass Menagerie (Amanda), Measure for Measure (Claudio), A Piece of Monologue and other Samuel Beckett shorts, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre's New Classics Series of staged readings. 

Lisa Leibering

Lisa Leibering is a fourth-year PhD student who earned a B.F.A. from West Virginia University in Puppetry and Theatre for Young Audiences and an M.A. from University of Wisconsin-Madison in Theatre for Young Audiences. For the past 16 years, she has worked as a professional theatrical designer and teaching artist. Her work has enabled her to experience theatre in a variety of circumstances from Equity theatres to cruise ships to juvenile detention facilities.

Her research interests include: performance traditions involving puppets and masks, design aesthetics of theatre for young audiences, and puppetry in general. She is a professional costume designer and puppeteer, and is currently working on creating a historical archive for the Pittsburgh International Children's Theater, which will be the focus of her dissertation.

Dave Peterson

Dave Peterson is currently a PhD student in Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh.  He holds a BA in Theatre and History from the University of Michigan and an MA in Theatre from Michigan State University.  He has presented work ranging from Shakespeare to Sondheim at conferences in Canada, Germany, and the United States. Dave has worked on teaching performance, puppets, and dramatic literature for multiple organizations and universities.  Additionally Dave has worked with MSU's Transforming Theatre Ensemble and is the advisor for Pitt's Red Eye Theatre Festival. Dave has served as a dramaturg on various Shakespeare productions, both education and professional. Acting work includes many productions at The University of Michigan, Michigan State and the University of Pittsburgh, including the world premiere of Tamara Goldbogen and Emilia Anderson's Alice.  Dave has directed at Michigan State, the University of Pittsburgh, and MSU's Summer Circle Theatre.  His next directing project is the English language premier of Finegan Kruckemeyer's This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing at the University of Pittsburgh.

Undergraduate SITS Staff

Julie Anne Evans

Julie Anne Evans is a Junior Theatre Arts and English Writing double major, receiving a Certificate in Children's Literature. She currently populates the SITS website and aids in the facilitation of student matinees as an intern.