Djola Branner, Director
Theater Faculty and Staff List
Adjunct Faculty, CVPA
Adjunct Faculty, TheaterDr. Elizabeth Alman joined the School of Theatre Faculty at Mason in 2015, teaching theatre performance courses, coaching Voice, Speech, Text and Dialects for Mason Players’ productions, and serving on the Faculty Committee for Mason’s Gateway Auditions and Interviews for prospective freshmen and transfer students. She enjoys mentoring students in their pursuit of career opportunities beyond Mason. This fall, she looks forward to serving as a committee member on a student’s Master’s Thesis Performance.
Director, School of Theater, CVPA
Djola Branner (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist/educator who combines movement, sound and light to give voice to individuals historically absent from the stage. Co-founder of the award winning performance group Pomo Afro Homos, he toured nationally and internationally with their shows Fierce Love: Stories from Black Gay Life and Dark Fruit, and subsequently performed in regional theaters across the country.
Adjunct Faculty, CVPA
Adjunct Faculty, TheaterJohn Carlson teaches Theatre Education, Theatre History, and the Introduction to Theatre Distance Education courses for the School of Theatre and Dance at East Carolina University (Greenville, NC). He received his BA in Communications from Salisbury State University (Salisbury, MD), his MFA in Acting from Western Illinois University (Macomb, Illinois) and his NC State Teacher's License, K-12 from East Carolina University.
Dean, College of Visual and Performing Arts, CVPA
Executive Director, Hylton Performing Arts Center, CVPA
Professor, School of Theater, Theater
Adjunct Faculty…Rick joined Mason in 1991 as Artistic Director of Theater of the First Amendment (TFA) and a member of the theater faculty. The company, which presented its final programs in 2012, was nominated for 38 Helen Hayes Awards, winning 12, and originated numerous works that went on to other regional theaters, television, radio, and publication.
Adjunct Faculty, CVPA
Adjunct Faculty, TheaterDavid Gaines, is a performer and director who has focused his work almost exclusively on telling stories in movement, mask, improvisation, commedia, and clown. He studied and later taught at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France, after which he was a founding member of The Moving Picture Mime Show – a movement theatre company based in London that toured Europe and the world for 10 years.
