Professor
Director of Production,
Theater-by-the-Grove
Shakespeare Performance
Directing
Stanislavski
Audition Skills
Voice
Office: Waller Hall, Room 206D
E-mail: Barb.Blackledge@iup.edu
Phone: 724-357-4450
Office Hours: Fall 2009:
MWF: 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.
TR: 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Barb Blackledge is a full professor in performance (acting/directing) in IUP’s Department of Theater and Dance. Originally hailing from Annapolis, Md., she has graduate degrees in theater from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (M.F.A.) and the University of Virginia (M.A.) as well as an undergraduate degree in English literature from Trinity College in Washington, D.C.
Barb has also been a professional actor since 1972, working off-Broadway in New York City at the Classic Stage Company for two seasons in addition to many other New York City and regional theater credits. Her most recent role was as “Mag” in Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane. For her sabbatical in Spring 2010, she will be a member of the core resident company at The Northeast Theatre Company in Scranton, Pa.
Barb has been working as a director for the past thirty-five years in both professional and educational theater venues. While she loves the challenge of directing Shakespeare, her favorite playwright, she has directed many modern classics from Ibsen, Shaw, Brecht, Williams, and Albee as well as contemporary plays from Henley, Mastrisimone, Son, Graham, Stoppard, Gurney, Friel, and Lebow. This past fall, she directed the first fully-realized production of the award-winning playViolet Sharp by William Cameron. Region II of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival invited this production to its annual festival and awarded Barb a Certificate of Merit for her direction.
Barb has been teaching at IUP since 1980, serving as our department chair from 1999 to 2008. She was one of the original faculty members at the Robert E. Cook Honors College, helping to develop the core curriculum still being taught there. Barb was also one of the co-founders and the first director of the nationally renowned IUP Reflective Teaching Project. Barb's most loved “projects” are her two children, Ben Simpson (Indiana, Pa.) and Molly Simpson (Philadelphia, Pa.).
