Member, Committee on Nominations
Elected March 2023, Term ends March 2024
Shelly Gaza is the Director of the School of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) and a Professor of Theatre specializing in Voice and Speech, Stage Dialects, and Acting Styles. At UNC, she has a ten-year history with UNC’s Little Theatre of the Rockies as an actor, director, and past Interim Producing Artistic Director and Executive Director. Professor Gaza has also taught theatre at Minnesota State University Moorhead, Wayne State University, the Actor Training Program at Utah Shakespeare Festival/Southern Utah University, and the Lake Dillon Theatre Company.
In addition to her academic work, Professor Gaza is also the Co-founder and past Deputy Director of StateraArts, a national non-profit organization committed to positive action for women in all aspects of the performing and visual arts. As an actor, she is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and has worked with the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Colorado and Alabama Shakespeare Festivals, and The Hilberry Repertory Theatre and The JET in Detroit, Michigan. As a director, she has received honors from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for Compleat Female Stage Beauty at the University of Minnesota Moorhead, and Intimate Apparel and Legacy of Light at UNC. Other directing credits include the Backstage, Phamaly, and Paragon Theatre Companies in Colorado, and the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 2014 Shakespeare in the Schools multi-state tour. She has also served as Speech and Dialect coach for the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities in Arvada, Colorado. Professor Gaza volunteers for the Weld Community Foundation and serves on the Board of Directors for the Greeley Creative District in Greeley, Colorado.
Professor Gaza holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting from Wayne State University, a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting from Millikin University, and a Certificate in Acting from the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia.
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Posted March 2023