Biography
Luda Popenhagen received her Ph.D. in Dramatic Art from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1996), her BA in French and Psychology from the University of Sydney, and the Communicative Teaching Certificate from the Institute of Languages, University of New South Wales. She was an NEH Scholar at the University of Oxford, UK, and at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Luda earned credits toward a Diplôme des Etudes Générales at Paris III, France. She obtained professional Diplomas in Acting from the Actors Conservatory Theatre, Sydney and the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Paris.
Luda Popenhagen is a scholar, translator, and theatre artist. She is trilingual: English, French, and Lithuanian. Luda has taught in universities and conservatories in Australia, Europe, and the USA, including the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), the Actors College of Theatre and Television (ACTT), the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney, and the University of Western Sydney, Australia. In the USA Luda taught and directed classical drama and original works at the University of Kansas in the Department of Theatre and Film.
Prior to becoming a university professor, Luda performed as a theatre artist and gave professional workshops. She taught at the National Academy of Music and Drama in Vilnius, and worked as primary assistant to Monika Pagneux in acting master classes in Paris. Luda was chief administrator for the International Pagneux/Gaulier Theatre Workshops in Edinburgh, London, Paris, Torino, and Toronto. Luda’s professional performance work includes acting in an Ionesco premiere in Paris, in experimental films at the Centre Georges Pompidou, and acting at the Paris Opera. She was selected to participate in Ariane Mnouchkine’s Acting Shakespeare and Mask Workshop at the Théâtre du Soleil, Vincennes. Theatre festival performances include new works at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the International Women Playwrights Festival (Adelaide), the Houston International Festival, the Los Angeles International Festival of Masks, and the California International Theatre Festival.
Luda’s publications include Nekrošius and Lithuanian Theatre, Peter Lang NY 1999 (the first-English language study of this internationally renowned Baltic director), Australian Lithuanians, UNSW Press 2012 (an interdisciplinary cultural study on post WWII migration to Australia), articles on Australian, Baltic, and French actors in the Cambridge Encyclopedia on Actors and Acting, CUP, 2015, and on Baltic directors in the Cambridge Encyclopedia on Directors and Directing, CUP, (upcoming 2018).
At CSUCI Luda holds a joint appointment between Performing Arts and Global Languages and Cultures. Currently she serves as PA Advisor, and previously as Advisor/Chair of the President’s Scholars Committee. In 2016-2017 Luda served as CSU IP Resident Director in France.
Her areas of expertise include French Theatre, Australian and Commonwealth Theatre, East European Theatre, experimental American Theatre, dramaturgy, transcultural performance, and theatre of migrant populations.