Doreen Bechtol

Movement Consultant

Holiday 2024 Season:

Movement Coach for A Christmas Carol 2024.

PREVIOUSly with ASC:

Movement Consultant for The Importance of Being Earnest, Macbeth (2024); Physical Dramaturg for *The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] (again); Movement Coach for Pride and Prejudice, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Coriolanus, Much Ado About Nothing, A Christmas Carol (2022), Une Tempête, Pericles, The Tempest, Pass Over, Thrive, Or What You Will, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors (2022), A Christmas Carol (2021); Choreographer for Romeo and Juliet (2022); Movement Director for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Merchant of Venice, The Most Lamentable Comedy of Sir John Falstaff.

OTHER THEATRE:

Director of Macbeth (Hoosier Shakespeare Festival), Romeo and Juliet (Mary Baldwin University); Co-Director of Pericles (MLitt program, Mary Baldwin University), C.Q.D. (devised show with MFA company Treehouse Shakespeare Ensemble); Director of Chapatti (Virginia Theatre Festival). Founding member of the Performers Exchange Project, a company dedicated to developing and performing original works.

Professional Roles:

Co-Program Director of the Shakespeare and Performance MLitt/MFA program at Mary Baldwin University, where she manages the MFA company, oversees training, and directs classical theatre and originally devised work.

Biography:

Doreen joined the ASC as an actor and choreographer in 2002 with the first Resident Troupe and then served as Director of Youth Programs, where she ran summer camps and educational programming for several years. She famously descended from the “heavens” in a circus hoop as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and previous ASC roles include Calphurnia in Julius Caesar, Olivia in Twelfth Night, Queen Margaret in Richard III, Christmas Present/Martha/Movement in A Christmas Carol 2002, Goneril in King Lear, Boy / Circus Choreographer in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Margaret / Dance Choreographer in Much Ado About Nothing, and Marianne in Tartuffe.

Doreen is Co-Program Director of the Shakespeare and Performance MLitt / MFA program at Mary Baldwin University, where she also manages the MFA company and oversees training.  As a director and movement practitioner, she enjoys both working in classical theatre and devising original work. Most recently, she directed Macbeth for the Hoosier Shakespeare Festival, Romeo and Juliet for MBU’s undergrad drama department, co-directed Pericles for the MLitt program, and co-directed the devised show C.Q.D. with the MFA company Treehouse Shakespeare Ensemble, and directed Chapatti for the Virginia Theatre Festival. Doreen is also a founding member of the Performers Exchange Project, a company dedicated to developing and performing original works.