Joanne Schultz
Instructor
Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts
EMAIL: joschultz@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office:
Office Hours: Spring 2024: T and Th 1-2pm in S628-S in the Main Building; Wed. online on Zoom 1-2pm. Tel: 212.776-6034
Phone:
Professor Joanne Schutz is a Fulltime Substitute Instructor in the Department of Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts. She has been teaching Introduction to Theatre and Fundamentals of Public Speaking courses at BMCC since 2017. She holds an M.F.A. in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College and a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Goddard College.
Professor Schultz began teaching college courses in 1999 at Marymount Manhattan College and since 2000 has taught at several CUNY colleges, including The College of Staten Island and City College. She has taught courses in Acting, Directing, Theatre History, Theatre Production, and Contemporary Images of Women in Theatre, Film and Literature.
Her approach to teaching theater and public speaking involves being warm, witty and welcoming, and she aims to stimulate the development of each student’s unique creative expression in a supportive learning community. Students in her classes acquire basic skills and gain useful practice in making theater or delivering speeches that are meaningful to them while developing peer friendships and associations. They transform wonderfully!
Professor Schutz’s theatrical body of work as a stage director includes developing and directing new plays at The Street Theatre in Canberra, Australia as well as directing and devising new theatre work for performance spaces in New York’s East Village and beyond. Shows she directed have played at Theater for the New City, Performance Space 122, The Baltimore Theatre Project, The Painted Bride Art Center and in performance venues in Germany. These shows received critical praise including “sparkling theater spectacle” (WAZ, Germany) and “an endlessly inventive marvel…in an evening of continual surprise for the audience” (The Village Voice).
She got her start as a young theater artist in her twenties when she performed widely in the U.S. and internationally as a narrator, singer, performer, and puppeteer with the acclaimed Bread and Puppet Theater. This experience taught her about theater as art, developed her social awareness and instilled in her a global perspective. For a decade, she led Ninth Street Theater, a collaborative ensemble of performers, musicians and puppeteers based in the East Village in creating unique and socially relevant theater. She has extensive experience viewing New York theater for decades and enthusiastically shares this knowledge with her students. As a Teaching Artist with Elders Share the Arts in New York City, she led community-based theater workshops with multicultural and intergenerational groups of students and older adults in many NYC neighborhoods. She is affiliated with New York Foundation for the Arts, The Professional Staff Congress, New York State United Teachers and American Federation of Teachers.
Expertise
Directing; Acting; Devising New Theater; Theater for Social Change; Multicultural Plays; Feminist Theater
Degrees
Master of Fine Arts in Theatre, Sarah Lawrence College
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts, Goddard College
Courses Taught
- The collaborative nature of the theatrical event will be explored in readings, presentations, play attendance, papers and creative projects. Contributions of the playwright, actor, director, designer, architect, critic, producer and audience will be investigated through selected periods, genres, theatre spaces and styles of production. The student's potential roles and responsibilities in creating theatre will be emphasized.
- The aim of this course is to develop effective skills in speech communication. The student examines how to generate topics and organized ideas, masters elements of audience psychology and practices techniques of speech presentation in a public forum. All elements of speech production and presentation are considered.
Research and Projects
Current project: Writing and Directing A Tale of Love and Perimenopause, which received a $10,000 Theatre Commission from New York State Council on the Arts in 2022 and a grant award from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2023. It’s a seriocomic fable featuring 2 versatile actors that tells the story of a middle-aged woman finding the humor in aging, loss, and transformation. A full production was presented on Sept. 28-Oct.1, 2023 at Theater for the New City in Manhattan.
Full Description: https://www.nyfa.org/fiscal-sponsorship/project-directory/view-project/?id=JS1449
BROADWAY WORLD LINK
Publications
- Theater for the New City Debuts Joanne Schultz’s Dramedy About Perimenopause, Broadway World, September 4, 2023, Stephi Wild
- Gibson’s flair is brought to life, Canberra Times, September 11, 2012, Glenn Burns
- Power and the Passion, Canberra City News, August 26, 2010, Joe Woodward
- Contributing author, Chapter 5: Finding the Form, Generating Community: Intergenerational Partnerships Through the Expressive Arts, New York: Elders Share the Arts, 1994
- A Stage Door to the Past, Daily News, May 24, 1994, Suelain Moy
- Queens Profile, Newsday, May 3, 1996, Sheila McKenna
- Ninth Street Theater at Painted Bride, Philadelphia Inquirer, February 29, 1992, Douglas J. Keating
- A Melting Pot of Puppetry and Images, Baltimore Sun, March 15, 1991, J. Wynn Rousuck
- Shadow Play Captures What Makes Our Values Tick, The Villager, 1989, Tom Wachunas
- Puppets on Parade, The Village Voice, December 26, 1989, James Magruder
- Approaches to Rosa L.: Vehement Theater in the Zeche Carl, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, June 4, 1988, Jurgen Boebers
Honors, Awards and Affiliations
- Creative Engagement Grant, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
- Individual Artist Theatre Commission, New York State Council on the Arts
- Adjunct Professional Development Fund, Professional Staff Congress-CUNY
- Professional Development Grants (3), Educational Development Initiative Team (EDIT), LaGuardia Community College-CUNY
- Panelist, New York Foundation for the Arts/New York State Council on the Arts
- Grants for Performance Projects (with Elders Share the Arts): National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts
- Grants for Directing Projects (with Ninth Street Theater): New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Puffin Foundation, Henson Foundation
- New York Foundation for the Arts
- Dramatists Guild
- The Professional Staff Congress-CUNY
- New York State United Teachers
- American Federation of Teachers
Additional Information
I feel enormous solidarity with the students of The City University of New York who work hard to attain their educational goals. As a faculty member, I’m grateful to teach CUNY students and in the process I hope I’m helping to “level the playing field.”
In capsule, my approach to teaching Public Speaking is to stimulate and support each student’s unique creative expression as they learn to speak about “what’s on their mind.” I guide them as they write and deliver speeches on topics that are meaningful to them and assist them in developing a point of view on public policy issues that impact their lives. Students in my classes have made speeches and delivered Power Point presentations on fascinating topics as various as the Dragon Ball Franchise, Minimalist Lifestyles, Soca Music, Student Life during the Pandemic, Racial Profiling, Too Much Technology, Climate Change, and LGBTQ in the Middle East. I’m a learner-focused instructor and have incorporated resilient teaching to support the success of my students in online and remote learning. If you’re willing to do the work, I’m willing to meet you in the middle!
My approach to teaching Theater is also learner-centered. While I introduce students to the basics of theater – Acting, Directing, Design and Writing – they are creatively involved in applying what they’ve learned in exercises and projects connected to their lives and interests. I teach multicultural plays by playwrights (such as Quiara Alegria Hudes and Dominique Morriseau) and classics (such as Shakespeare) as well as contemporary solo and group performance that speak to current issues (John Leguizamo, Anna Deveare Smith, Eve Ensler). It’s learning marked by creative play with the discipline needed from a theater artist. Like an artist, you enjoy yourself as you expand your knowledge of theater and its craft.
