A teacher of acting, directing and improvisation, Peter Larlham places theatre squarely within human experience. He creates an environment in which students strive for perfection while valuing the success of their peers. Larlham has directed and performed in more that 30 campus productions while guiding students through every phase of the program – from voice coaching to priming for auditions to grooming for admissions to graduate programs.
Membership in campus Honor Societies. In 2006 selected by the University Honors Program to participate in the Last Lecture series presenting “The Lost Art of Speaking Poetry.” As the Phi Beta Kappa lecturer for 2006-2007 delivered the 41st Phi Beta Kappa Lecture “A Noble Cause: Theatre in South Africa 1976-2006,” reflecting his 30 years of research and publication in the field of African Theatre. In 2004/2005 received an SDSU Mortar Board Outstanding Faculty award for outstanding Scholarship, Leadership and Service. Six times Outstanding Faculty Award winner for the School of Theatre, Television, and Film, and in 2006-2007 received an Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Faculty Contributions to the University – the Monty!
Service to the University includes service on the Provost Review Panel, the Senate, the Provost RTP Advisory Panel, together with service on numerous college and department committees.
When choosing plays to present on campus, Larlham shuns the type of productions offered by professional companies in favor of pieces with global perspective; directing plays by Aristophanes, Bertolt Brecht, Eugene Ionesco, Edward Bond, Dario Fo, Marina Carr, and Caryl Churchill. Concerned about the dearth of meaningful roles for women in classical theater, he cast Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew with men in the female roles, and women in the men’s. With a desire to promote an interest in classical acting with SDSU students and to bring Shakespeare to life for schoolchildren in San Diego he devised 45 minute touring productions of Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream which toured the county with our students actors. The program has been financially viable while serving as rigorous training for our students. Macbethand Twelfth Night were filmed and aired on UCTV.
Dr. Larlham’s work brings a global perspective to SDSU both in his teaching and his research and publication. His extensive research into African performance has enriched his students and resulted in international summer research visits to South Africa, where on two occasions Theatre students performed at the Grahamstown Festival (the largest arts festival in Africa) in original works created at SDSU. In May 2010 under the aegis of Scholars Without Borders (a new honor society created at SDSU to promote international study, research and service) Dr. Larlham with the support of the Division of Undergraduate Studies, the Honors Program and Phi Kappa Phi travelled to Tanzania with faculty and 12 students from SDSU to install a library in an elementary school in the town of Kongwa. With a library built, 6,000 books installed, chairs and tables built and Swahili books supplied through a 2011 Phi Kappa Phi Literacy Grant, Larlham’s focus is now on creating a lunch program for the children so they can stay in school for a full day. On a visit with students in 2011 he bought a herd of goats for the school. The goats supply fresh milk daily for a lunch of maize meal porridge for the children. This year (2012) he will return in June to assess the success of the Goats For Kidsprogram, dig a plot of land to grow vegetables and maize, and install a rainwater collection system at the school.
Dr. Larlham’s focus has been and continues to be the broadening of the perspective of students, and of heightening the profile of SDSU in the global community through student endeavors, research and scholarship.
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