Sophia Skiles
MEET
BROWN/TRINITY REP’S NEW HEAD OF ACTING When the fall semester begins for the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA programs in acting and directing, students will be welcomed back by a new head of acting. Sophia Skiles was tapped last summer to take over from Brian McEleney after he announced his retirement. An actor and teacher, Sophia is an active professional with strong ties to the Ma-Yi Theater and National Asian American Theater companies. She has more than 20 years of experience teaching acting in a wide range of environments: with public school students throughout NYC, pre-college students at Northwestern University’s National High School Institute, and high school seniors in Ulster County, N.Y. She has held teaching positions in undergraduate theater programs at Mount Holyoke College, SUNY Ulster, and SUNY Purchase. Sophia is a dedicated community activist, having served on the steering committee of the OBIEAward winning THAW (Theaters Against War) and was recently a two-term elected trustee of the New Paltz Central School District Board of Education. She is also a member of the 2016 ArtEquity National Facilitator training cohort. The Brown/Trinity Rep MFA program is a three-year tuition-free program that welcomes 10 acting students and two directing students into each class (though the admissions schedule was disrupted by the pandemic.) The program combines in-depth classroom work and an ongoing relationship with a working professional theater. Brown University’s Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies is internationally recognized for the quality of its faculty and instruction. Trinity Rep, with its deep tradition of resident artists, provides powerful artistic assets and creates a firm foundation of real-world experience. Together, the two organizations have produced a model of theater training that is rigorous and technically demanding, offering particular emphasis on training the whole theater artist. As the head of acting, Sophia will lead a program designed to train performers capable of working in the variety of styles demanded by contemporary theater. We spoke with her to learn more about her goals for the program. Q: What does being the Head of Acting for Brown/Trinity entail? A: I am working with the dedicated faculty to create a shared vision that is expansive and dynamic enough to nourish and propel the extraordinary diversity of growing artists of the MFA cohort of actors and directors I am just coming to know. This will involve classroom teaching, attending rehearsals, offering feedback and guidance, connecting MFA candidates with opportunities and resources that will deepen and change the art form, and advising student productions. When the program is ready to admit a new incoming class, I will collaborate in the audition process to help determine who the 14
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program’s next MFA candidates will be. I hope to serve as a partner and support to my colleagues in the program and in the Brown Theater Arts and Performance Studies department through service and collaboration. As a Professor of the Practice, I will also remain connected to and share my artistic work as a professional stage actor and facilitator for racial justice within the theater. Q: What do you hope to accomplish in your position here? A: I hope to build on the rich work of my predecessors, (program founding director) Stephen Berenson and (founding head of acting) Brian McEleney, who have gathered and mentored a robust generation of theater artists at Brown/ Trinity Rep. I am deeply gratified to step into the program at a time when it is tuition-free. How can the program honor and engage the profoundly different roots and paths of our students? As I earn and build trust in relationships, I intend to help broaden professional resources, opportunities and contacts to support and enrich the varied creative trajectories of these specific cohorts. I am especially focused on creating a culture of both care and excellence for and with this specific collective of individuals, many of whom are already making their mark on the professional field. This emphasis on culture to me must include engaging all of us in anti-racist consciousness and practice. From curricular material and production selections to text analysis, from casting to staging, how do the aesthetic choices we embody live within the context of our embodied political histories and realities of the artists in the program, in the audience? Q: What inspired you to pursue arts education? A: Moving between teaching and performing spaces sharpens my work in both arenas. They have become inseparable. In learning spaces, I am challenged to articulate and engage in my own knowledge and curiosity. When I am witness to students expanding, coming into their artistry, I am reminded of the power and pleasure in performance and am excited to return to the rehearsal room and stage myself. Watching and engaging in professional work, I can’t wait to bring that energy and insight back into the classroom. That cyclical momentum nourishes my artistry and keeps me learning. Q: Is there a particular person who inspired you to pursue theater? A: First there are a number of individuals who have inspired and encouraged me into a profession where my belonging is not necessarily a given. I am here because of their generous Sophia Skiles (she/her) as disruptions. In seventh grade, I was a Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester scholarship student in an academically in The National Asian American rigorous and prestigious college prep Theater Company’s Henry VI (NY school akin to the storied associations of Times Critic’s Pick & Drama Desk Brown University and Trinity Rep. It was nomination), adapted & directed outside the classroom where the drama by Stephen Brown-Fried. teacher, Dr. Maureen O’Toole, noticed I Photo: William B. Steele was looking at the audition flyer for the fall play, a Kabuki version of Antigone. Auditions had already taken place but she could find something for me to play, if I was interested. I so deeply appreciated her seeing me in that moment and offering me an opportunity to belong, and that deadlines and rules were in place to add structure, not barriers. They can and should be moveable to create opportunity and community. From the start, she treated me as an artist and encouraged me to find a sense of purpose, consciousness as I explored theater. It was an irresistible feeling — to be respected, valued, seen, to be capable of a sense of purpose — and I have held onto that sensation and strived to honor it in others ever since.
