Taking Center Stage

When Anton Dudley talks to drama students about being a “whole theater person,” he knows what he’s talking about.

The associate professor of drama’s prolific work as a writer and performer spans everything from operas to plays to musicals to drag shows — many of them featuring puppets that he’s designed himself. 

And while audiences from Manhattan to Georgia have enjoyed live performances of his work in recent weeks and months, there’s a special place in his heart for Gambier, where his frequent productions give students a valuable opportunity to perform original work.

“Three-quarters of the shows I’ve directed here have been things that I’ve written or adapted,” he said. “And that feels really inspiring to give students the practice of doing new work, (because), if they go to Chicago or New York, as many of our theater students do, most of the work they will engage with will be new work.”

The most recent example came earlier this month when Dudley directed a student production of his irreverent play “Beowulf: Cleanup on Isle Fieve.” Last academic year, it was “Alice In…” a musical adaptation of the works of Lewis Carroll.

Students say the opportunity to work closely with Dudley and learn from his example is valuable in a multitude of ways, including how it stimulates their own creative output.

“His work inspires people to do their own kind of theater that they want to see out there in the world,” said Sofiia Shyroka ’25, a double major in drama and biology who has taken multiple classes with Dudley and participated in four of his student productions, including “Beowulf.”

Dudley said the influence goes both ways.

“As much as you have to teach and share with (students), it’s an intergenerational experience,” he said. “They teach me a lot. It’s great to always have this steady stream of young people who are right on the cusp of whatever conversations are being had socially and nationally.”

Student work — whether it’s on stage in Bolton Theater or in class — invariably ends up influencing his own.

“It’s inspired me to expand my own practice, and so it feels like a sort of feedback loop in a really great way,” Dudley said.

Dudley teaches a variety of courses — directing, performance, writing lyrics for musical theater and more — that are all connected by his belief in having a 360-degree understanding of the theater business. A good director should understand design, for example; playwrights should study acting, and actors should be able to analyze text.

“This kind of liberal arts approach to theater where you play in all aspects of it really informed my identity as an artist,” he said.

So the variety of his work performed in the past year shouldn’t come as a big surprise: In New York City, a Tony-winner performed his one-woman musical “Marguerite,” about Canada’s first saint who helped found Montreal, while he — and some puppets — took center stage in an original, all-ages musical, “Baba Yaga and the Firebird.” And he’ll be back in the Big Apple this summer for the latest installment of a drag show in which he stars as the fictional Duchess Carpathia Bouffray.

Elsewhere, his play “Honor and the River” — which The New York Times called “riveting” when it debuted in 2007 — got a reprise this month near Atlanta, and his all-female opera “Katie: The Strongest of the Strong” is preparing to go on tour next season in Chicago. 

Dudley’s students at Kenyon have gotten the message loud and clear. 

Elaine Stone Preston ’25, a drama and philosophy double major, has had Dudley in class several times, including this semester’s new special topics course, “Popular Theater: Forms and Practice.” She said it’s been incredible to watch a professional at work who is in tune with so many different aspects of the craft.

“It’s all very much part of one movement for him,” she said. “I think it brings a real freshness and an artistic perspective.”

Another student, Sophia Stewart ’25, an English major who performed in “Beowulf,” said she appreciates how Dudley is open to other perspectives — including those of students, who sometimes make suggestions that are incorporated into his productions. 

“What sets him apart is the way that he’s just so open to everybody and all different ideas,” she said. “By diversifying himself, I feel like he’s able to consider things from a lot of different angles.”