Printed in the University of Colorado, Master of Humanities Winter, 1995 newsletter

Student Spotlight on Sanne McCarthy

Sanne McCarthy is ecstatic about her job, and with good reason.  As the new Theatre Coordinator for Colorado Christian University (CCU), she professionally combines three long-time loves in her life: theatre, spirituality and commitment to community. And, as an educator, she has another thing to be thrilled about.

Sanne started the MH program this year. This means she's able to educate her undergraduate theatre students in tandem with her own graduate studies in theatre, English and history. It's a perfect situation, especially when she gets to teach the courses she's taken. This semester she is studying Shakespeare with Dr. Pearlman. She will teach Shakespeare at CCU next year. She plans to take Dramatic Theory and Criticism with Dr. B. Bowles, another course she is already scheduled to teach.

The delightful synergy created by her parallel educational experiences goes beyond the classroom, however, for Sanne is a theatre director.   She directs CCU student productions; she variously acts and directs for CCU's community/professional theatre, the Ensemble Theatre Company and she directs and tours CCU's childrens theatre company. Similarly, at UCD, Sanne's directing skills have already been recruited through the MH program.

For her thesis, fellow MH student, Jo Kadlecek is writing the play, Trumpet Sounds about the life of the 1920's political activist, Dorothy Day. Sanne will direct Jo's staged reading of her play, to be performed at CCU on May 18th at 7:30 – and you're invited! When Jo finishes the play after this summer, Sanne will possibly direct its world premiere...perhaps as her own thesis project.

A rich, diverse background paved the way for Sanne's current circumstances.  As a theatre major on the brink of graduating from Sonoma State College in California, she left to join a promising theatre company on tour.  Later, she reveled in her experience of living in community with the Gestalt Fool Theatre Family, in San Francisco, in the sixties, at the height of the hippie movement.  After she married and began her family, she worked various odd jobs to support her passion for Christian theatre performance. In the seventies, her family had a group home for adolescents. In the eighties, they had a receiving home for neglected and abused children.

Later, she transformed a "part time job to pay bills" into a significant employment experience at the Colorado Make-A-Wish Foundation. Hired by the founder, Sanne developed and produced their first annual report.  She devised their still most beloved fundraising tool and most importantly, she developed advanced writing and administrative skills.

In 1990 she returned to college at CCU to major in theatre.  Her past education and remarkable ability to CLEP (test out of) many required courses enabled her graduate with her BA in 1992,  only one year and a half later. 

Rick Scheideman, CCU's Artistic Director immediately cast her as Ouiser in CCU's performance of Steel Magnolias and hired her as an adjunct faculty member to revive the then defunct CCU children's touring theatre. The following fall CCU invited her to teach Creative Arts, a general education survey course. By Spring, she was offered the full-time position of Theatre Coordinator, an unprecedented accomplishment for someone without a masters degree already in hand.

Once Sanne completes her MH degree, she plans to obtain another masters degree, possibly one offered at CCU in Curriculum and Instruction – Process, Tools, and the Nature of Education.

The Ensemble Theatre Company will perform, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" this summer in repertory with Rick Scheideman's performance, "Samuel Clemens or the real Mark Twain," written by Cliff Jewell.  The plays open August 18.