Faculty & Staff: Faculty

Contact Info Dept. of Drama & Dance Aidekman 208B Medford, MA 02155 Phone: 617-627-2534 Email Lecturer

Drama

Sheriden Thomas, Lecturer and Guest Artist (full-time), Acting and Directing

Sheriden Thomas is a Lecturer and Guest Artist within the field of Acting and Directing. She holds an M.F.A. in Acting from the University of Minnesota and received a Bush Fellowship. She is a member of Actors' Equity, SAG, AFTRA and SSD&C. Beginning her acting career with two seasons at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre, Sheriden has acted across the country for over 30 years. In New York City, she was awarded Theatre Week Magazine's Straw Hat-Best Actress for her portrayal of Didi in Waiting for Godot. She has played major roles in plays by Albee, Williams, Chekhov, Pinter, Vogel, Hellman and Shakespeare, including Lear and Prospero, and most recently Falstaff for the Judith Shakespeare Company in New York City. Since the mid-1980's, she has directed professionally, for the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas, Mother Jones in Chicago, Company Theatre in Los Angeles and Manhattan Class, WOW Cafe and Women in Theatre in New York City. Prior to coming to Tufts, she directed and taught acting at Cornell and Southern Methodist University. At Tufts she has directed A Piece of My Heart, Hay Fever, and gender-switched productions of The School for Scandal and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Spring of 2010 will add Hedda Gabler to this list.

Since arriving in the Boston area, Sheriden has directed plays and readings of plays for Another Country, Queer Soup Productions, and Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. She travels to schools in the Boston area to develop and perform a one-woman show/reading of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. This next year she will be working with peace activist Susan Corso to bring her play PeaceWomen on the twelve women Nobel Peace Prize laureates to a wider audience.

Summer ’08 she appeared as Gert in Stoneham Theatre’s production of Jack Neary’s The Porch. Summer ’09 she appeared in the Boston Theatre Marathon. Sheriden has studied The Viewpoints & Composition with SITI Company in Los Angeles and with Rod Pattenden, founder of InterPlay, Sydney, Australia. A Tai Chi practitioner for many years, she currently studies yoga at O2 in Somerville.

Courses Taught:
DR 12 Acting II
DR 93 The Business of Acting
DR 100 Acting III
DR 112 Advanced Acting Workshop