Our Theatre Faculty

Charles R. Miller is a Professor and Director of Theatre at Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, TN. He was the co-founder and Producing Artistic Director of the Smoky Mountain Shakespeare Festival. He has worked as an actor and director at American Stage, Asolo Theater, Porthouse Theatre, the Clarence Brown Theatre and the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. He has worked as voice and movement coach for the University of Tennessee and the Clarence Brown Theatre. He is certified as an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework. He has also studied under Cecily Berry, Margaret Loft, and Jim Hancock. Charles is a member of the SAFD, SSDC, and VASTA. Charles holds an MFA from the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU and a BFA from the University of Idaho.

Claude Hardy (Technical Director) was born in rural Indiana and received his undergraduate degree at Indiana Wesleyan University. Claude's graduate studies took him to Wayne State in Detroit, Michigan, where he received his M.F.A. While at Wayne State, he began a love affair with Russian theatre. Since graduate school, Claude worked as a carpenter at Penn State and then taught at Lycoming College at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. His goal is to start a study abroad program at the Moscow Art Theatre specializing in scenic design. He is delighted to be the first resident Technical Director and Lighting Designer for the Pellissippi State Theatre program and to live in the Knoxville area with his wife, Jennifer, and daughter, Cora.

Lisa Soland's plays Waiting, Cabo San Lucas, Truth Be Told, The Man in the Gray Suit & Other Short Plays and The Name Game are published by Samuel French Inc., but her work can also be found in "best of" anthologies published by Samuel French, Smith & Kraus, Applause Books and Dramatic Publishing. She has produced and/or directed over 80 productions and play readings, 55 of which have been original, and founded The Fellowship Theatre in North Hollywood and Theatre Encino in Encino, California. Her production company, Rose's Name Game Productions, has been producing original works since 1993, with Ms. Soland still at the helm. She is the founder of The All Original Playwright Workshop, where she works as Artistic Director and teacher, producing workshops throughout the United States and online. Ms. Soland comes to us having most recently served as a playwright-in-residence at the Tennessee Repertory Theatre in Nashville, where she had the opportunity to work with Pulitzer prize-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley.

Steve Fitchpatrick has been acting and teaching for almost thirty years. He spent ten years in Los Angeles working as an actor in film and television. His film and television credits are many and can be viewed on IMDB. He took his first acting class at a local community college and has not stopped since. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee and his MFA in Acting from the Theater School at Depaul University. In 2002 Steve moved back to Tennessee to raise his two sons and began teaching professionally. He is a regular on the Clarence Brown stage and also teaches at the University of Tennessee.

Donald Thomas has forty years of teaching experience at all levels of education. He has been the director of more than fifty plays. He has worked, performed, managed or administrated at: UTK, Carousel Theatre, Clarence Brown Theatre, Hunter Hills Theatre, Bearden High School, Cleveland State CC, Maryville College, Tennessee Stage, The Bijou Theatre, Pellissippi State, Theatre Knoxville. He has served on grants panels for the Tennessee Arts Commission, Arts Council of Greater Knoxville, and East Tennessee Foundaton. Donnie holds the BS and MACT degrees from the University of Tennessee.

Dorothy Donaldson is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Speech. She has been teaching at Pellissippi since 1988. Dorothy holds a BA in Theatre Arts from University of Minnesota, an MA in Acting and Children's Theatre from Trinity University and an MFA in Performance from the University of Georgia. In addition to teaching on the college level she has been a Creative Drama teacher in the public schools, costumer, writer, director and actress. Locally, she has acted with Theatre Knoxville, Carpet Bag Theatre, UT's Clarence Brown Theatre, and The WordPlayers. TV and film credits include commercials, "The Heartland Series," and industrial films. She also tours original one-woman shows of historical, Biblical and modern-day women.

Ben Harville has worked in Regional Theatre as an actor, director and administrator during his forty years of active theatre work, as well as touring nationally for ten years with a company he founded in Knoxville in 1973. For the past fifteen years, he has been on the faculty of Pellissippi State, teaching Public Speaking, Introduction to Theatre and Acting. During these years, he has worked as an actor with several East Tennessee theatres, including the Clarence Brown Company, Tennessee Stage Company and Actors' Co-op. He also founded and managed a dinner theatre in the mid-1990s, several of whose productions he directed. Five plays which he wrote were produced by regional and university theatres. Ben holds a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Performance from the University of Tennessee and the Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the same school.