Jennifer Ross Nostrala

Jennifer Ross Nostrala, professor of theatre arts has been directing and teaching theatre for over twenty-five years. She teaches the advanced acting and directing courses. She also teaches Script Analysis, Women and Theatre, Vocations and the Performing Arts, and Playwriting. A few years ago she created a new May Term course, Agents of Change: Creating Change in the Community Through Performance. This course is designed to help students investigate a contemporary issue and then develop a performance around that issue as a way to create change in the community. Recent offerings of this course have focused on raising awareness on campus on sexual harassment and assault. The students have put together a performance that is used as a part of the orientation for new students on campus. Jennifer also teaches in our Women‚ and Gender Studies program.

Productions

Simpson College:

• Machinal (2021)
• Prospera’s Island: An Operatic Fantasia (2020)
• The Magic Flute (2019)
• Kiss Me, Kate (2019)
• Tartuffe (2017)
• The Comedy of Errors (2016)
• Knowing Joan (2015)
• Rodgers and Hammerstein‚ Carousel (2014)
• Lysistrata Jones (2013)

Iowa Stage Theatre Company

• The Cake (2021)
• Bright Half Life (2021)
• A Doll’s House (2019)

StageWest Theatre, Des Moines, Iowa:

• Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (2015)
• Venus and Fur (2014)
• The Shape of Things (2011)

Winterset Stage, Winterset, Iowa:

• The Quiet Man (2012)

Des Moines Social Club, Des Moines, Iowa:

• Fat Pig (2010)

The Vortex, Austin, Texas:

• Hamlet (2007)

• M.F.A in Directing from The University of Texas at Austin, 1988
• B.A. with majors in Theatre Arts and Art from Simpson College, 1985

• 2013 Commendation for Directing and Choreography, Lysistrata Jones, KCACTF
• 2012 Commendation for Devised Work, Alice‚ Trip, KCACTF
• 2010 Iowa Arts Council Grant for Fat Pig
• 2009 Commendation for Directing, Back Story, KCACTF
• 2008 Faculty Award for Campus Leadership, Simpson College
• 2006 Commendation for Directing, One Flea Spare, KCACTF
• 2003 Distinguished Teacher Award, Simpson College
• 2001 Iowa Arts Council Grant for travel to LaMama Umbria workshop, Italy
• 1998 Distinguished Junior Faculty Award, Simpson College