Shavonne Coleman
Shavonne Coleman, MFA
Adjunct Professor of Drama
Shavonne Coleman is a teaching and performing artist, writer, and director from Detroit, MI. She’s been a Teaching Artist for many organizations including Detroit Public Schools, VSA Michigan, CrossTown Theatre through Eastern Michigan University, Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, and Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit among others. She has an MFA from Eastern Michigan University for Applied Drama/Theatre for the Young. In 2013, Shavonne traveled to S. Korea to direct a Youth Theatre performance at the Zoom Theatre in Seoul. Ms. Coleman returned to her alma mater for the 2017-18 school year as a Visiting Professor at Grand Valley State University in the Music, Theatre, and Dance Department where she taught Introduction to Theatre,Theatre in Education for preservice teachers, and Applied Theatre courses. She was awarded the 2018 Emerging Leadership award to research the historical impact of people of color in the field of children/youth theatre from Theatre for Young Audiences (USA/assitej) and was a staff writer for TYA Magazine from 2018-2020. Being the Theatre for Dialogue Coordinator in the Longhorn Wellness Center brought her to Austin,TX in 2018 where she taught Theatre for Dialogue: Interpersonal Violence Prevention. In 2022 she was awaeded the Anne K. Flagg Multicultural Award (AATE) and began 2023 being inducted as a new Board Member for CTFA (Childrens Theatre Foundation of America). This year, Shavonne is excited to teach at ACC, while writing a chapter of a soon to be published TYA play Anthology entitled Every Great Dream: Visioning African American Theatre for Young Audiences, while also navigating an exciting commission to adapt Your Name is a Song by Jamilah Tompkins-Bigelow for Seattle Children’s Theatre. Shavonne’s teaching, scholarship, and service aims to broaden the ways we define and experience traditional American Theatre by making it a more inclusive and equitable field by cultivating an