Theresa Robbins Dudeck received her M.A. in Theater History, Literature, and Criticism from California State University, Northridge, and PhD in Theater Arts from University of Oregon.
Dr. Dudeck is an international theater practitioner-scholar with expertise in improvisation. She is frequently invited to present talks and facilitate applied improvisation master classes that focus on changing the way people and organizations lead, create, and collaborate. She is a Fulbright Scholar, which took her to Brazil to teach and direct, and considered one of the foremost teachers of Keith Johnstone’s impro system of training. She serves as Johnstone’s literary executor, is co-founder of the Global Improvisation Initiative, and co-director/executive producer of the YouTube docuseries “On Keith: Artists Speaks on Johnstone & Impro.”
Her teaching and research interests include theatrical improvisation, physical comedy and character masks, postwar British theatre, dramatic theory and criticism, theatre and social justice, directing, musical theater, and applied improvisation for pedagogy, interpersonal skills, and ideation.
Dr. Dudeck wrote Keith Johnstone: A Critical Biography (Bloomsbury 2013) and is co-editor of two books on applied improvisation published by Methuen Drama: Applied Improvisation: Leading, Collaborating, and Creating Beyond the Theatre (2018) and The Applied Improvisation Mindset: Tools for Transforming Organizations and Communities (2021). Her articles have been published in The Guardian, American Theatre, Theatre Topics, and other peer-reviewed journals, and have been translated into Portuguese, Swedish, and Japanese.
Dr. Dudeck was a professional Los Angeles-based actor-singer-dancer before entering graduate school in 2005. For the last two decades, her passion (beyond the classroom!) has been directing, and she directs/co-creates several theater and improvised theater events each year, including new plays in development and original improvised formats.
She was the recipient of PSU’s 2021-2022 Academic Excellence Award for Adjunct Faculty and is a member of Actors’ Equity and the Screen Actors’ Guild.