A native of rural New England and graduate of Reed College in Oregon, Darren Blaney is an actor, teacher, playwright, essayist, solo performer, and director who currently teaches Theater History and Acting in the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Miami, Florida.
From 2007-2010, Darren taught queer theater and acting at Pomona College. While at Pomona, Darren also produced an annual festival of 10-Minute plays, taught for three summers as a Critical Inquiry faculty in a college-prep program for gifted minority students, and directed an acclaimed production of Lanford Wilson’s Fifth of July. He has also taught acting and queer theater at UC Santa Cruz; and drama, religious studies, and humanities at UC Davis. Darren was a recipient of the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship and graduated with a PhD in Dramatic Art with a graduate minor in Critical Theory from UC Davis in May of 2009. His doctoral dissertation was entitled: “Staging the Social and Cruising the Crisis: A genealogy of utopian aspiration in U.S. queer theater from the 1960s to the present.”
As an actor, Darren made his off-off-Broadway acting debut in 1995 at the age of 25, playing assorted characters in the original cast production of My Own Private Eyeshadow at CrowBar Theater in the East Village, where he was told by his fellow actors that “he should really take a class.” Darren subsequently studied acting with numerous NYC teachers including Sophie Havilland and Leyla Modirzadeh, as well as with master teachers at the Herbert Berghof Studio in Manhattan. After relocating to San Francisco is 2000, Darren trained further at the American Conservatory Theater with Letitia Bartlett, Jeffrey Crockett, and Gregory Wallace before self-producing his two solo shows The Bird Club: Letter to Sandra Bernhard and You May Now Kiss… My Sass..?, which were both presented in conjunction with the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2001 and 2005, respectively. To further improve his acting technique, Darren studied Adler Technique with Marsha Taylor at UC Santa Cruz, and trained intensively in Meisner Technique with Ian McRae, former head acting instructor at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.
In the Bay Area, Darren performed his original solo material at Monday Night at the Marsh, Works San Jose, San Francisco City College’s Solo Performance Festival, Shotwell Studios, Gay Comedy at Piaf’s, Kvetch at Sadie’s Flying Elephant, Santa Cruz's Broadway Playhouse, and the Marsh’s Mock Café, where he once shooed Robin Williams off stage to the horror and awe of an unsuspecting open-mike audience of about 30 people who ended up laughing at some of his jokes. His play What the Hell is Going on Here?, co-written with feminist playwright Kristina Goodnight, was a satire of post-9/11 American life. It was produced at the Chautauqua Festival at UC Santa Cruz in 2003.
As an actor, Darren has performed with the California Shakespeare Festival, the New Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, Berkeley's Shotgun Players, and Shakespeare Marin. While at Pomona College, he was fortunate to play the roles of Lt. Edwards and the Bailiff in the 30th Anniversary production of Luis Valdez' Zoot Suit. The production was directed by Dr. Alma Martinez, a star in the original Mark Taper Forum production and subsequent film. Trained in Shakespearean acting as well, Darren also played John of Gaunt in a production of Richard II directed by internationally-known theater historian and director Leonard Pronko.
Darren's complete acting resume is available here: http://resumes.actorsaccess.com/darrenblaney
In the Los Angeles area, Darren presented his solo work at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica in November 2007 and at homo-centric, a monthly reading series for GLBTQI authors sponsored by Stories Books in Echo Park, in May 2010.
An urban nomad of sorts for the past twenty years, Darren has lived in many notable lesbian neighborhoods, including West Hollywood, Santa Cruz CA, Northampton MA, Southeast Portland Oregon, Bernal Heights San Francisco, Lake Merritt Oakland, the East Village, and Park Slope and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY… all places where he thoroughly cultivated his inner lesbian as well as his womb-envy. He currently resides in the Oakland Park area of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his partner and their three dogs, where he is working on refining several articles for publication, including pieces on Lanford Wilson, Robert Patrick, Doric Wilson, Norma Bowles, John Cameron Mitchell, and Luis Oropeza.
His forthcoming essay, “Queering ethnicity and shattering the disco: Is there an enduring gay ethnic dance?” will be published in 2014 by Oxford University Press in a volume entitled Dance and Ethnicity, edited by Dr. Anthony Shay.
An essay that explores Doug Holsclaw's earliest contributions to AIDS theater, "THE AIDS SHOW Broke the Silence" is available online from the Gay and Lesbian Review, Worldwide, March/April 2011 edition, Volume 18, Issue 2.
From 2007-2010, Darren taught queer theater and acting at Pomona College. While at Pomona, Darren also produced an annual festival of 10-Minute plays, taught for three summers as a Critical Inquiry faculty in a college-prep program for gifted minority students, and directed an acclaimed production of Lanford Wilson’s Fifth of July. He has also taught acting and queer theater at UC Santa Cruz; and drama, religious studies, and humanities at UC Davis. Darren was a recipient of the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship and graduated with a PhD in Dramatic Art with a graduate minor in Critical Theory from UC Davis in May of 2009. His doctoral dissertation was entitled: “Staging the Social and Cruising the Crisis: A genealogy of utopian aspiration in U.S. queer theater from the 1960s to the present.”
As an actor, Darren made his off-off-Broadway acting debut in 1995 at the age of 25, playing assorted characters in the original cast production of My Own Private Eyeshadow at CrowBar Theater in the East Village, where he was told by his fellow actors that “he should really take a class.” Darren subsequently studied acting with numerous NYC teachers including Sophie Havilland and Leyla Modirzadeh, as well as with master teachers at the Herbert Berghof Studio in Manhattan. After relocating to San Francisco is 2000, Darren trained further at the American Conservatory Theater with Letitia Bartlett, Jeffrey Crockett, and Gregory Wallace before self-producing his two solo shows The Bird Club: Letter to Sandra Bernhard and You May Now Kiss… My Sass..?, which were both presented in conjunction with the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2001 and 2005, respectively. To further improve his acting technique, Darren studied Adler Technique with Marsha Taylor at UC Santa Cruz, and trained intensively in Meisner Technique with Ian McRae, former head acting instructor at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.
In the Bay Area, Darren performed his original solo material at Monday Night at the Marsh, Works San Jose, San Francisco City College’s Solo Performance Festival, Shotwell Studios, Gay Comedy at Piaf’s, Kvetch at Sadie’s Flying Elephant, Santa Cruz's Broadway Playhouse, and the Marsh’s Mock Café, where he once shooed Robin Williams off stage to the horror and awe of an unsuspecting open-mike audience of about 30 people who ended up laughing at some of his jokes. His play What the Hell is Going on Here?, co-written with feminist playwright Kristina Goodnight, was a satire of post-9/11 American life. It was produced at the Chautauqua Festival at UC Santa Cruz in 2003.
As an actor, Darren has performed with the California Shakespeare Festival, the New Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, Berkeley's Shotgun Players, and Shakespeare Marin. While at Pomona College, he was fortunate to play the roles of Lt. Edwards and the Bailiff in the 30th Anniversary production of Luis Valdez' Zoot Suit. The production was directed by Dr. Alma Martinez, a star in the original Mark Taper Forum production and subsequent film. Trained in Shakespearean acting as well, Darren also played John of Gaunt in a production of Richard II directed by internationally-known theater historian and director Leonard Pronko.
Darren's complete acting resume is available here: http://resumes.actorsaccess.com/darrenblaney
In the Los Angeles area, Darren presented his solo work at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica in November 2007 and at homo-centric, a monthly reading series for GLBTQI authors sponsored by Stories Books in Echo Park, in May 2010.
An urban nomad of sorts for the past twenty years, Darren has lived in many notable lesbian neighborhoods, including West Hollywood, Santa Cruz CA, Northampton MA, Southeast Portland Oregon, Bernal Heights San Francisco, Lake Merritt Oakland, the East Village, and Park Slope and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY… all places where he thoroughly cultivated his inner lesbian as well as his womb-envy. He currently resides in the Oakland Park area of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his partner and their three dogs, where he is working on refining several articles for publication, including pieces on Lanford Wilson, Robert Patrick, Doric Wilson, Norma Bowles, John Cameron Mitchell, and Luis Oropeza.
His forthcoming essay, “Queering ethnicity and shattering the disco: Is there an enduring gay ethnic dance?” will be published in 2014 by Oxford University Press in a volume entitled Dance and Ethnicity, edited by Dr. Anthony Shay.
An essay that explores Doug Holsclaw's earliest contributions to AIDS theater, "THE AIDS SHOW Broke the Silence" is available online from the Gay and Lesbian Review, Worldwide, March/April 2011 edition, Volume 18, Issue 2.
