Teaching Assistant Professor
Theatre
Email: joellead@ksu.edu
Office: 138 Nichols Hall

Biography
Joelle is a consent-based director, actor, intimacy choreographer, and educator in both theatre and film. In addition to directing over 50 productions and teaching countless acting classes, she was the Founder and Producing Artistic Director of the professional nonprofit Circle Ensemble Theatre Company in Athens, Georgia for 8 years. Her current scholarly research applies concepts from behavioral neuroscience to Stanislavsky’s methodologies and theories to give performance scholars a richer and more precise understanding of Stanislavsky’s work, while allowing teachers and directors to zero in on the techniques that are most likely to help them achieve their goals- all in safer, braver spaces for the entire production team. She currently teaches acting, directing, voice, devising and consent and staged intimacy.

She is a proud member of the SDC (Stage Directors and Choreographers Society), the Directing Focus Group Representative for ATHE (Association for Theatre in Higher Education), the Media Editor for the Stanislavski Studies Journal and its companion website Stanislavsky: Here, Today, Now, and is on the editorial board of The Journal of Consent-Based Performance. Recent publications include Stanislavsky and Intimacy (editor and contributing author) London: Routledge, Taylor and Francis, November, 2023 and "Active Analysis for Beginning Acting Students: A Class Blueprint," Stanislavski Studies, ed. Stefan Aquilina (Routledge, Taylor and Francis, November, 2023).

Favorite Quote:

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.—Maya Angelou

Education

Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies; the University of Georgia.

M.F.A. in Dramatic Media with a Directing Emphasis; the University of Georgia.

B.F.A. in Acting; The Ohio State University