Biography
Annette Thornton (PhD, University of Colorado, Boulder) is Professor Emerita of Theatre, Interpretation, and Dance at Central Michigan University. She taught Music Theatre Performance and History Courses, Acting, Movement for the Actor, Irish Theatre and Drama, and Oral Interpretation of Literature. Selected directing/ choreographing credits include: The Full Monty (Attic Theatre, WI), Carousel (Thunder Bay Theatre), Oedipus (Midland Center for the Arts); Blood Wedding, Ragtime, and Oklahoma! (all KC-ACTF Certificates of Merit for Excellence in Directing); The Secret Garden, Into the Woods, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Scarlet Pimpernel, 42nd Street, Working, Hair, The Other Project (a devised work), and for colored girls… In 2011 Thornton played the role of Vivian Bearing in Wit at Bethel College (KS) sharing the bill of Greer Visiting Artist Series with playwright Margaret Edson. Thornton’s dissertation on Lotte Goslar, Grandma Always Danced: The Mime Theatre of Lotte Goslar, is the first full-length study of this important female clown/pantomime/ dancer. Thornton’s chapter on Goslar is in a four-volume set called Women’s Innovations in Theatre (in progress, Bloomsbury). She co-edited Physical Dramaturgy: Perspectives from the Field (2018) with Jeff Casazza and Rachel Bowditch. Thornton has studied mime with Marcel Marceau, Meyerhold's Theatrical Biomechanics with Gennadi Bogdanov, “Acting and Empathy” with Anna Deavere Smith, and is a certified yoga teacher. Thornton has been a member of ATME since 1998. She served on the executive board of ATME for ten years (as Secretary, VP, and President), served on the Advisory Board, and returned this year as Secretary. She is the recipient of ATME’s prestigious Outstanding Service Award (2018). Prior to her life in academe, she taught high school French and was the owner and artistic director of a private dance studio in Kansas for 17 years.