Faculty Scholarship

SHIRLEY KAGAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF THEATER

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR of Theatre Shirley Kagan has served as artistic associate of the Richmond Shakespeare Theatre since 2003, currently participating as casting director for the group’s popular outdoor Shakespeare festival held annually at Agecroft Hall.

Kagan garnered another Richmond credit, directing the regional premiere of playwright Israel Horovitz’s Compromise, which was presented in the spring of 2006 as a joint production of the Firehouse Theatre Project and the Carpenter Science Theatre Company.

In the summer of 2006 Kagan was selected to participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute entitled “Venice, the Jews and Italian Culture,” held in Venice, Italy. As part of this endeavor she presented a paper entitled “Acting in The Merchant of Venice: Jessica and Portia.” She followed up the work done that summer by helping to organize a symposium in the summer of 2007.

Kagan’s review of The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia, edited by Philip Kolin, appeared in the Midwest Quarterly. Last spring she served as a panelist for the Virginia Commission for the Arts and later traveled to Colorado to present the paper “Their Laughing Mediterranean Way: Venice in Harold Pinter’s Betrayal” at the national conference of the American Association of Italian Studies. At Hampden-Sydney, where she has taught since 1997, Kagan continues to direct plays, recently staging Yasmina Reza’s Art, as well as creating, directing, and touring Good Men and Good Citizens, a chronicle of the strong bonds between faculty and students at the College.

Kagan holds the B.A. from Williams College and the M.F.A. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She attained the rank of associate professor in 2003.

BEYOND THE Classroom FOR THE Classroom
Hampden-Sydney College Faculty Scholarship 2005-2008
A report by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty