My Art of Teaching with Lurana Donnels O’Malley

Thursday, May 1, 2025
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm
Kuykendall 106 Events Room

Join us for an exciting conversation between Dr. Kirstin Pauka and Dr. Lurana Donnels O’Malley, colleagues in the Department of Theatre and Dance, on teaching and pedagogy. Dr. O’Malley began teaching at UH Mānoa in 1991 and received the UHM Presidential Citation for Meritorious Teaching in 1994. She uses creative class projects and experiences that draw on her background in theatre. Dr. O’Malley will retire at the end of this semester. In this celebratory conversation, we dive into her teaching philosophy, her experiences within the classroom and with her students, and her “art of teaching” that she has accumulated during her over thirty years at UHM.

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Lurana Donnels O’Malley serves as Co-Director of Graduate Studies in Theatre and Dance and teaches in the areas of Euro-American theatre history, research, and directing. O’Malley received her PhD in 1991 from the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of The Dramatic Works of Catherine the Great: Theatre and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Russia, and the editor/translator of Two Comedies by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia: Oh, These Times! and The Siberian Shaman. Her newest book, Black Activists Write Wheatley and Washington: Terrell, Du Bois, and the Drama of the 1932 Bicentennial, is forthcoming this summer from Routledge. Recent directing credits include Indecent (Open Home Performance Network), June is the First Fall (Kumu Kahua Theatre), The Spitfire Grill (Kennedy Theatre), and Aitu Fafine (Kumu Kahua Theatre). O’Malley has received the UHM Presidential Citation for Meritorious Teaching and the Arts and Humanities Excellence in Scholarship Award.

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Presented by

Lurana Donnels O’Malley
Professor, Theatre

Kirstin Pauka
Professor, Theatre

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This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Theatre & Dance and the OFDAS Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE).