The Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts welcomes the following new faculty.
Jamie Bullins is Assistant Professor of Theatre with a concentration in costume design for the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film. He comes to Nebraska from Kennesaw State University, where he served since 2000 as associate professor and coordinator of design and technology in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies. He holds an M.F.A. in theatrical design/scenography from the University of North Carolina/Greensboro and has been designing and teaching for 20 years. He has also held positions on the faculty at Auburn University and The University of Florida.
Bullins was among four design consultants, including Keith Belli, Liz Stillwell and Paul Tazewell, to Rosemary Ingham’s final text before her untimely passing in 2008, from page to stage: How Theatre Designers Make Connections Between Scripts and Images. His design work includes Atlanta companies The Alliance Theatre, The Center for Puppetry Arts, Dad’s Garage Theatre, Serenbe Playhouse, True Colors and Theatrical Outfit.
Megan Elliott is the Director of the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts and a faculty member in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film. She began last January. She was previously the manager of leadership and community connections at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia and former director and CEO of digital media think-tank X Media Lab.
From 2015-2016, Elliott served as the manager of Leadership and Community Connections at the University of Technology Sydney in Sydney, Australia’s number one young university. She has deep ties to emerging media industries across Asia, Europe and the world. She served as co-founder and director of China Creative Industries Exchange in Beijing and Shanghai, China, from 2007-2015.
From 2005 to 2015, Elliott was the director/chief executive officer for X Media Lab (XML), an internationally acclaimed digital media think-tank and creative workshop for the creative industries that she co-founded with Brendan Harkin. Elliott and Harkin were recently chosen as two of five people to have their oral histories recorded for the National Film and Sound Archive in Australia, as two people pivotal to the development of the interactive media arts industries.
She also served from 2002-2006 as the executive director of the Australian Writers’ Guild.
Originally from Australia, Elliott received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Canberra in Bruce, Australia.
Andy Park is the artistic director for the Nebraska Repertory Theatre and research assistant professor in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film. He began in January. Park is an award-winning artistic director, stage director, playwright, lyricist and puppeteer.
Park is the founding artistic director of Quest Theatre Ensemble, a position he has held since 2002. Quest is an award-winning, free theater committed to ensuring that everyone has access to the arts.
He has been artistic director of the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago since 2007. Park wrote, directed and produced aquatic shows that feature dolphins, beluga whales, sea lions, penguins and birds of prey.
In 1998, Park was appointed artistic director of the Showboat Becky Thatcher Theater in Marietta, Ohio, a position he held for three years before leaving for Chicago.
In Chicago, Park has worked as a stage director and playwright. His original production "Seashore" was nominated for three Jeff Awards including best ensemble and best new work.
He also conceived and directed an opening spectacle for the 2005 Lollapalooza Music Festival and was artistic director for the Chicagoland Puppetry Guild's Puppet Festival and QuesFest, a puppet and drum festival on Chicago's north side.
Additional directing highlights include Circus Crashers at Actors Gymnasium, "Failure: A Love Story" at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, three productions for the Cirque Shanghai, the European tour of Quest's "Blue Nativity" and "The People's History of the United States," and "Evolution/Creation."
Park has written 10 full-length musicals with his longtime collaborator and friend, composer Scott Lamps. Their newest musicals, "A Christmas Wish" and "Return of Neverland," were nominated for three Jeff Awards in 2014 including best music and lyrics.
Sergio Ruiz is Professor and Director of the Glenn Korff School of Music. He began his position on July 1. Ruiz, a Steinway artist, comes to Nebraska from the Georgia College Department of Music, where he was professor of music and chair since 2013.
Prior to that, he was director of keyboard studies from 2004-13 and director of the Institute of Latin American Music Studies from 2007-2013 at Sam Houston State University School of Music in Huntsville, Texas.
He earned a doctorate of musical arts in piano performance from Rice University, his master’s degree in music from Cleveland Institute of Music and his bachelor of arts from Santa Clara University.
His performances on Spanish-speaking radio broadcasts have aired throughout South and Central America. Most recently, he performed concerts in the Czech Republic, Belgium, Germany, Bolivia, Ecuador and Mexico. Ruiz studied piano in Barcelona under the tutelage of the late pianist Alicia de Larrocha.
In 2009, he won the Texas Music Teachers Association Collegiate Teacher of the Year Award. In 2011, he won the Faculty Excellence in Service Award. He also served as Artistic Director of a Youth Symphony and Music program in León, Mexico, and has been on the summer faculty at Interlochen Academy for the Arts since 2008. Ruiz was the creator and artistic director of a Latin American Arts and Humanities Festival—Festival (de) Inspiración.