BIOGRAPHICAL

Scot Lahaie is Assistant Professor and Director of Theater at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. GWU is a small, private, liberal arts university nestled in the foothills of the southern end of the Appalachian mountains.

After earning a BFA in Drama in 1983 from Sam Houston State University, Scot Lahaie worked as Theater Manager for the Keller Theater in Giessen, Germany (a part of the US Army Entertainment Program in Europe). He was later promoted to Entertainment Director for the Giessen Military Community, which included the responsibilities of Artistic Director for the Keller Theater. In that capacity, he has participated as either director, designer, or actor in over 60 shows. He returned to the US in 1995 to pursue graduate studies in Theater Arts at Baylor, where he earned a Masters of Arts in Theater History and Dramatic Criticism with thesis in 1996 and a Masters of Fine Arts in Stage Directing in 2000. Upon completing his graduate work, Professor Lahaie taught for three years at Baylor University before joining Gardner-Webb's faculty as Director of Theater in January 2003.

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RESEARCH

Professor Lahaie's present research agenda centers on New Play Development, but also includes issues of transcendence and morality in popular culture. Further interests include theatrical practices of the Weimar Republic, Bertolt Brecht, Erwin Piscator, and the fictional writings of C.S. Lewis.

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PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS

Lahaie, Scot, ed. New Plays Festival, Volume Three: New One-Act Plays by Emerging American Playwrights. New York: iUniverse, 2006.

Lahaie, Scot, ed. The Horton Foote Review, Volume 1: A Scholarly Journal. New York: iUniverse, 2005

Lahaie, Scot, ed. The Best of 24 HOURS: New Ten-Minute Plays. New York: iUniverse, 2005.

Lahaie, Scot, ed. New Plays Festival, Volume Two: New One-Act Plays by Emerging American Playwrights. New York: iUniverse, 2004.

Lahaie, Scot, ed. New Plays Festival, Volume One: New One-Act Plays by Emerging American Playwrights. New York: iUniverse, 2003.

Lahaie, Scot. The Cattleman’s Suite: A Two-Act Comedy. New York: Writers Club Press, 2002.

Coubier, Heinz. The Beloved. Translated from the German by Ute and Scot Lahaie. Berlin: Will Meisel Publishing, 1990. (Available as production manuscript only.)

ARTICLES, REVIEWS, AND SHORT PLAYS

Scot Lahaie, “On the Purpose of Christian Art.” An essay included in Christ and Culture: Proceedings of the 2001 Christianity in the Academy Conference. William R. Marty and Bruce W. Speck, eds. Southern Pines, N.C.: Carolinas Press, 2004. Pp. 35-40.

Scot Lahaie, “The Translation.” A one-act play included in New Plays Festival, Volume Two: New One-Act Plays by Emerging American Playwrights. Scot Lahaie, ed. New York: iUniverse, 2004.

Scot Lahaie, “Six Soldier Junction: A Soldier’s Anthology.” A one-act play included in New Plays Festival, Volume One: New One-Act Plays by Emerging American Playwrights. Scot Lahaie, ed. New York: iUniverse, 2003.

Book revue of Jeffrey Hart’s Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward the Revival of Higher Education for the Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (Vol. XV, No. 1/2, 2003) co-published by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and the International Christian Studies Association.

“Religiocosmic Fiction: A Cultural Reading of Genre” – A full-length article published in the Journal of Contemporary Thought, sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Theory at the University of Baroda (India) and Louisiana State University-Shreveport, 2002.

Conference Report – “Report of the annual convention of the Forum on Contemporary Theory” published in the Newsletter of the Forum on Contemporary Theory at the University of Baroda (India) and Louisiana State University-Shreveport, 2002.

“Ira Aldridge: Black Actor, White History” – A full-length article accepted by the Society of Research in African Cultures for inclusion in a forthcoming book of essays on African culture in the Diaspora. Expected in spring 2005.

Book revue of George Marsden’s The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship for the Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (Vol. XII, No. 1/2, 2000) co-published by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and the International Christian Studies Association.

Book revue of Jeffrey H. Boyd’s Reclaiming the Soul: The Search for Meaning in a Self-Centered Culture for the Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (Vol. X, No. 1/2, 1998) co-published by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research & the International Christian Studies Association.

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A TEACHING PHILOSOPHY by Scot Lahaie

"I teach from four fundamental commitments. My first objective is to introduce my students to the history and heritage of the theater and the foundational principles of our art form, because these things are the building blocks of our discipline and give undergraduate students a common vocabulary with which to discuss their work. A mastery of these principles gives graduate students opportunities to shape the greater artistic conversation in the community of artists and scholars that comprise the academy.

Second, I am committed to a dialectic tension between theory and practice. Allowing theory to inform practice not only creates interesting artistic endeavor, it also allows an artist to understand his own work intellectually. This understanding in turn allows student artists to talk about what they do, why they do it, and how they achieved it. Only from this platform can I embark on the purposeful task of teaching others. It is my purpose to teach students not to do what I (or others) have done—as imitators—but to help students uncover the way artists discover that they may find their own artistic voice.

Thirdly, I believe that theater students must study culture. Since theater is ultimately about something else besides theater, it is important for the developing artist to have a broad understanding of language, literature, politics, history, and current events. These are the things that comprise challenging and socially important theater. I therefore demand excellence from students in all areas of their studies, not just theater classes alone, and I believe a study or travel abroad program is critical to any liberal arts education.

Finally, I am committed to creating life-long learners. This is at the very core of liberal arts education. Although students expect their professors to teach them, they must eventually learn to take responsibility for their own learning. I embrace an educational process that moves me (as teacher) from the role of “sage on the stage” in the early stages of student development to the role of the “guide on the side” in the later stages of development that my students can continue to learn and grow after they leave my classroom.

In summary, I approach teaching with a deliberate structure and method. I am committed to education with rigor, founded upon good scholarship, and executed in a spirit of collaboration. I hope to establish foundations in my students that will facilitate maturity and establish learning as a life-long habit releasing the artist to pursue excellence at all levels."

© 2002 by S. Lahaie

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THE THEATER PROGRAM AT GWU

Building on his own research interests, Professor Lahaie has created an undergraduate program that balances the development of new work with presentation of the classics (both traditional and modern). Each fall, Professor Lahaie produces a new full-length play in GWU's annual Playwright's Workshop, while each spring his advanced directing class produces the New Plays Festival--a series of new one-act plays from American playwrights collected from around the country. To encourage his students to create their own original material, Gardner-Webb University Theater hosts a performance event entitled 24 HOURS. In this event, GWU theater challenges its own students to write, rehearse, stage, build, and perform six new ten-minute plays in a single twenty-four-hour period. Visit the theater program's website for more information about the theater program at Gardner-Webb University.

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