Acting Program
What I Do at SSU
I teach mask, circus skills, and other acting styles, and performing arts for classroom educators. I also teach introduction to performance in the Theater Arts & Dance First-Year Learning Community and the Expressive Arts First-Year cohort in the ACE (Academic & Career Exploration) program. I direct regularly at SSU, most recently the musicals Sweeney Todd and Candide.
My Bio
Doyle Ott is a performer, director, dramaturg and theatre and circus scholar. Career highlights include work with Make A Circus, Splash Circus Theatre, Prescott Circus, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, San Francisco Circus Center, Bay Area Children's Theatre, Foolsfury, Antenna Theatre, Golden Thread, and the San Francisco Playwright's Foundation, where he served as dramaturg for Pulitzer Prize winner Jackie Sibblies Drury, and many other playwrights.
As Artistic Director at Children's Fairyland in Oakland he has overseen the creation of two new performance spaces, written and directed over 30 plays for children, and developed the Bay Area's first professional Theatre for the Very Young. He directs and produces the park's annual summer circus performance. He also produces events for young audiences at the park, including performances by Axis Dance, Oakland Ballet, and the Bay Area Childrens Theatre.
Recent publications include Believing Impossible Things: Alice in the Circus Ring, about circus adaptations of Alice in Wonderland, and Extreme Embodiments: Shakespearean Circus Performance, about the use of circus in producing Shakespeare.
In addition to his work at SSU he He performs and directs regularly as company member of the Medical Clown Project and of Playground. He is a member of Actors Equity and a certified Feldenkrais practitioner. Doyle holds a Ph.D. in Theatre (concentration in Theatre for Youth) from Arizona State University, an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts Education from San Francisco State University, and a BA, University of California, Irvine where he studied with Jerzy Grotowski.