While elements of musical theater have been featured in the Fine Arts department’s Holiday Concerts for several years, the academic theater program is just now emerging. Of course, the completion of the new Heath Center theater complex is  providing great momentum for development!

The Mary Ellen Orr Auditorium, a 293-seat venue, offers state-of-the-art sound and lighting for optimum production quality. A greenroom, workshop, costume shop and dressing rooms are also included in the theater facilities. Our  Town, the College’s first play, was staged in the Orr Auditorium in Spring 2007.

Academic offerings include basic introductory courses as well as Acting I: Movement and Voice and Performance and Production.

Drama students for years to come will  enjoy the professional  environment of the Heath Center’s theater facilities.

FACULTY

 Debra Brown,  Associate Faculty in Theater, holds a bachelor of fine arts in theater (acting concentration) from the University of Illinois. She has performed a variety of roles at The Studio Theatre and Quincy Community Theatre and is also known throughout the region for her portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln.

Brown received national attention as director of C-Span’s Lincoln-Douglas debates in Quincy and has directed a series of environmental theater productions through LDM (Lincoln, Douglas, Mary Todd Lincoln) Productions, a company formed following the debates.

She was awarded the YWCA Women of Achievement Award for the Arts and was named JWCC Associate Faculty Member of the Year in 2001.