The Stories We Tell Will Shape the Future

Life Invented at SCU

What does it mean to be an artist at a time when the stories we choose to tell, and how we tell them, might just shape the future? The nuances of choice in life and on stage are the jump off for this episode of Life Invented. Join us in conversation with nationally recognized actor Aldo Billingslea, Professor of Theatre Arts at Santa Clara University. Explore yet another way to invent the life you want to lead at Santa Clara University. SPEAKERS: Aldo Billingslea, Professor of Theatre Arts Aldo Billingslea joined the theatre department faculty as an assistant professor in the Fall of 1998 after serving as an adjunct lecturer in the spring of 1996. Billingslea earned his B.A. in English and Communication Arts at Austin College, his M.A. in Secondary Education with a Theatre and English emphasis at Austin College, and his M.F.A. in Acting at Southern Methodist University. He appeared in Santa Clara University's productions of Paul Robeson, Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale, and directed A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour Lost, Pentecost, The Shadow Box, Coriolanus, Little Shop of Horrors, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf and Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. A member of Actor's Equity Association and the Screen Actor's Guild, Billingslea has appeared in productions of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running and Radio Golf; Eugene Oneill's The Hairy Ape; Arthur Miller's Death of A Salesman; August Strindberg's Miss Julie; Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire; and more than two dozen different plays by William Shakespeare. Billingslea has worked in the San Francisco Bay Area at the American Conservatory Theatre, Aurora Theatre, California Shakespeare Theatre, Cuttingball Theatre, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Magic Theatre, Marin Shakespeare Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, TheatreWorks, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. He has also worked at Portland Center Stage, Portland Repertory Theatre, Tacoma Actor's Guild, Sacramento Theatre Company, Plano Repertory Theatre, Theatre Three in Dallas, San Antonio's Majestic Theatre, Oasis Theatre Company in Buffalo, San Diego's Old Globe Theater, Utah Shakespearean Festival, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas and spent seven seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. Billingslea teaches American Theatre from the Black Perspective, a seminar on August Wilson, Acting for Non Majors, Acting I, Acting Styles: Shakespeare, and Acting for the Camera.