Amanda Petefish-Schrag, associate professor of theatre in the Department of Music and Theatre, was recently published in the International Journal of Education and the Arts as part of a special issue titled “Issues in Teaching Theatre Design.” This issue explores the questions, ideas, experiments, theories, and research of theatre design educators responding to the challenges of 2020 and the years of disruption and unrest that followed.
Petefish-Schrag’s article, “Puppetry for a Plague Year: A Syllabus?,” examines the processes and questions that emerged in Iowa State University’s Puppetry: Design and Performance course during the Fall 2021 semester, highlighting how puppetry can serve as a counterpoint to increasingly mechanized and virtual learning environments.
Petefish-Schrag teaches courses in puppetry, acting, theatre history, and script analysis. Her professional credits include work as a playwright, puppeteer, director, and actor. Her playwriting work has been produced at festivals and theaters in London, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Denver, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Iowa City, and has been published by Playscripts, Inc., and Smith and Kraus. Her current puppetry research and performance work explores the use of discarded materials as a means of preserving puppeteers’ historical social-ethical function. Recent directing projects include “Fairy Tales for the Anthropocene,” “The Velveteen Rabbit,” and “Iowa Insect Pageant.” Petefish-Schrag is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the International Union of Marionette Artists, and the Puppeteers of America. She is a past recipient of the Kennedy Center National Teaching Artist Grant and the Missouri Governor’s Award for Excellence in Higher Education.