Matt Saltzberg
Dr. Matt Saltzberg is a teacher, scholar, director, actor and ethnographer originally from New York. He currently works in the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Department of Theatre as the Mizzou Advantage Postdoctoral Fellow in Disruptive and Transformational Technologies and is an Affiliate member of the Graduate Faculty. This fall, he is teaching an advanced acting course in the Suzuki Method of Actor Training – a rigorous movement-based training founded on the codified forms of kabuki and the metaphysics of noh by Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki – and Viewpoints – an interactive, collaborative, and improvisational philosophy of movement translated into a technique for training performers, building ensemble, and creating movement for the stage. He will also teach a cross-level, interdisciplinary Performance Ethnography course that explores the notion of empathy via the capacities and capabilities of the human body. In the spring semester, Dr. Saltzberg will teach a graduate seminar in Non-Western Theatre History and as well a cross-level interdisciplinary course concerning the relationship of digital media in performance that will culminate in an original, devised, multi-media performance piece for the public. Dr. Saltzberg’s specializations include in Acting (Stanislavski, Suzuki/Viewpoints, styles), Directing, Script Analysis, Solo Performance, Performance Studies, Performance Theory, Devised Theatre, Adaptation, Ethnography, Media and Performance and Experimental Performance. Dr. Saltzberg graduated with a BA in Theatre Performance from Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania where he performed such roles as Estragon in Waiting for Godot, Stanley in The Birthday Party, Muley Graves in The Grapes of Wrath, and the Male Greek Chorus in How I Learned to Drive, and directed Celeste Raspanti’s I Never Saw Another Butterfly. In 2005, he graduated with an MA in Theatre Arts from the C.W. Campus of Long Island University, where he performed such roles as Flote in Red Noses, Collins/Sideway in Our Country’s Good, and Richard in A New Brain. He directed August Stramm’s Sancta Susanna and Christopher Durang’s Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You in partial completion of his Master’s thesis entitled “A Little Crucifixion.” He earned is doctorate in Theatre from the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he performed such roles as Major Petkoff in Arms and the Man and Thurston Wheelis, et al. in Greater Tuna. Other directing credits include The Glass Menagerie (Shaw Performing Arts Festival, St. Louis, Missouri), Sleuth (Thespian Hall, Boonville, Missouri), Edward Albee’s The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? (Independent Actors Theatre, Columbia, Missouri), and Love Kills: The New Rock Musical (Assistant Director, New Line Theatre, St. Louis, Missouri). Dr. Saltzberg last worked with PACE in 2007 as Assistant Director to Brett Johnson’s production of A Kid’s Tale: An Evening of Shakespeare.
