Faculty

Biography

Sara Bickweat Penner is a senior lecturer in the Department of English after having served as an adjunct lecturer of voice and movement at the University since 2018.

Penner has been working with the University’s International Theatre Program to shape its consent policies and practices, is a certified ID through Intimacy Directors and Coordinators and has trained with Theatre Intimacy Education. She was awarded a teaching innovation grant to build new coursework and practices from 2023-2024.

She has taught voice and speech to actors and business professionals and continues to work as an actor, director, theatrical intimacy director and dialect coach.

Penner will teach Acting, Movement for the Actor, The Actor's Voice, Consent and Performance and From Scratch: Devising for the Theatre. She’ll also oversee acting and voice coaching and intimacy direction on the International Theatre Program’s mainstage productions.

• Undergraduate: BFA, fine arts in acting, music and dance, Adelphi University; BFA, fine arts in music theatre, Webster University, Sergeant Conservatory for Performing Arts
• Graduate degrees: MFA, fine arts, The Actors School/New School for Drama, New School University
• Most recent appointment: Adjunct lecturer of voice and movement at the University of Rochester and lecturer of acting and voice and diction at Finger Lakes Community College