Department of Theatre and Film College of Arts and Sciences Bowling Green State University
back to news Aug. 30, 2021
Westlake returns to home land excited for new opportunities with Theatre, Film and Media Arts
Maybe now E.J. Westlake's sister Rebecca will be happy.
Following 20 years as a faculty fellow member at the University of Michigan — and a long career as a professor, playwright, manager and writer before that —Westlake has returned to her home state of Ohio every bit the commencement chair of the newly renamed Department of Theatre, Film and Media Arts (TFMA).
"The whole xx years I was working at the school up north, my sis continually called me a traitor," Westlake joked. "Now she's over the moon."
In her new position (she volition also serve equally a professor in the section), Westlake volition have a number of opportunities in the years ahead.
New Arts and Sciences faculty have positions this autumn
She will work to truly bring together units that had been separate until this year. She will have to re-engage the public with plays and movies following the COVID-19 pandemic. And she'll focus on increasing the department'south diversity to showcase the best of Ohio Land.
Merely rather than seeming daunting, those challenges were all office of the thrill of moving dorsum domicile and accepting her new position. With the added do good of the department moving into a brand new building in the virtually future and the opportunity to collaborate with a broad array of other units in the College of Arts and Sciences, Westlake can't wait to become started.
"I've always thought that theater was never separate from the other arts," Westlake said. "The potential for collaboration between our units is staggering. And the new building is going to be part of that, that nosotros'll be together in this amazing space that allows u.s.a. to interact."
Westlake was offset drawn to performance art equally a ten-year-former in Dayton. Her sister Rebecca was dating a boy who performed as a flying monkey in a community theater production of The Wizard of Oz. Westlake remembers being enchanted by and fatigued to the theater'southward magic. Her other sister Margaret before long found an advertisement in the local newspaper calling for auditions for a children'southward theater company. Westlake jumped at the opportunity.
Westlake continued attending the theater through high schoolhouse, where she was encouraged to write her own musical. She also picked up music, performing in jazz choir, high school bands and marching bands. During hard times when she was discovering who she truly was, music and theater provided a refuge.
"I always say that music and theater basically saved my life," Westlake said. "Seriously, information technology was the very early 1980s, and I was just coming out equally a lesbian, and that was a very painful time for me because it was at a fourth dimension where that was considered incorrect. And then the AIDS crunch was only starting. The gay customs was very stigmatized. Sometimes I just felt hugely alone, but I always constitute a family of accepting people in music and theater."
In early adulthood, while living in Portland, Oregon, Westlake was inspired past a volunteer trip she took to Nicaragua. Building off the lessons she learned from her female parent — a strong feminist and civil rights activist who was involved in the politics of Central America — Westlake traveled to Nicaragua to help, and acquire from, its citizens.
One time in that location, she was amazed by the level of customs engagement generated by the arts and funded past the authorities. She saw troupes set up to help women empathise their rights or to aid people amend their agriculture practices.
"I really developed a keen involvement in studying how different people approached the arts and how communities used it to unite themselves and solve real-globe bug," Westlake said. "I carried that dorsum with me, and I decided I really needed to have more in terms of intellectual engagement."
That desire sparked her to continue her educational journey with advanced degrees and eventually get a professor herself. She earned a principal's degree in theatre arts at Portland Country, and then got her PhD in theatre and drama from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That began a career in academics that took her to Wisconsin, Auburn Academy and Bowling Green State before she spent the past xx years at Michigan.
Ongoing construction at the new Theatre, Film and Media Arts Edifice in the Arts Commune.
At present, though, Westlake has returned home to start something new. Equally the first chair of TFMA, she's taking a role where she can build something of her ain and establish a legacy.
One of her biggest early focuses is to bring together faculty and staff who were previously dissever and build collaborations not only with other arts disciplines, only with departments from the entire higher. She knows that, regardless of the specific expanse of study, storytelling binds us all together. And in TFMA'southward new building, they'll have the technology and location within the Arts District to make big things happen.
"No matter what you're engaged in, you're talking about using images to convey stories that assistance the states explore who we are and what information technology means to be man beings on this planet," Westlake said. "I call back people are naturally going to gravitate toward each other. People on our faculty are already engaged in these kinds of collaborations. [The new building is] just going to brand it and so much easier."
Source: https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/news/westlake-theatre-film-media-arts
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