Faculty Spotlight: Shelley Ford

Shelly Ford’s first brush with theatre was as a freshman at Georgia Southern University. She saw a flyer with information about auditions for a play and decided to take a chance.

“I was scared and excited at the same time,” says Ms. Ford, temporary instructor of theatre and scene design in the Department of Languages, Literature, and Communications. “But I got the part, and they offered me a scholarship.”

That experience sparked an unending interest in theatre for Ms. Ford. The Thomasville, Ga., native says she acted in a couple of plays following her first stint, but she became more interested in the creative aspects of set design.

“The set acts as another character in the play, and that’s probably why designing is my favorite aspect of theatre” she says. “I hope to improve the quality of people’s lives—whether it’s to laugh or to think, and that’s also why I teach theatre.”

After earning a master’s degree in theatre design from the University of Memphis in 1996, Ms. Ford began teaching as an assistant professor of theatre at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La. Three years later, she decided to pursue a doctoral degree from the University of Georgia, where she is currently a candidate for the degree.

For a year, Ms. Ford was an instructor in the Women’s Studies Program at UGA from 2002-2003. She also opened a halfway house for women in Athens called Freedom from Bondage, and she has just begun volunteering for Hope House for Women. In her first semester at Augusta State, Ms. Ford is on the Women’s Studies Program Committee and hopes to help Christie Launius, director of the Women’s Studies Program and assistant professor of English, in the future.

“I like helping women as a group,” says Ms. Ford. “Our society has spent thousands of years interested in men—I want to give women some attention.”

Ms. Ford is definitely getting some attention for the set she built for the recent production of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. According to Carolyn Cope, assistant professor of theatre, it’s one of the largest sets the theatre program at ASU has put into the Maxwell Theatre.

“When the director said he wanted it to be in Venice, I said, ‘okay let’s look at the architecture,’” Ms. Ford says. “If the play is significant, why shouldn’t the set be?”

Another interesting aspect of the set is that it suggested the stage of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

“The Globe itself is a much different animal, but my design harkens to the stages of that era,” she says. “The Merchant of Venice is a problem play, but there are romantic elements as well, and the director wanted me to reflect both of these.”

In addition to building sets, Ms. Ford loves teaching students about theatre.

“The pace at ASU is slower so I can focus on the students,” says Ms. Ford, adding, “I want to recruit students who are here and give them the experience and training. I do theatre because it teaches me about myself. It teaches me about the human race.”

Ms. Ford earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgia Southern University and a master’s degree from the University of Memphis.

Who: Ms. Shelly Ford

Position: Temporary instructor of theatre and scene design

How long at ASU: This is Ms. Ford’s first semester.

What do you love most about working at ASU: “What I like most is the friendliness of the people here. The faculty and staff are amazingly easy to work with and are helpful. I’ve had to call upon a lot of different people for a variety of things across campus, and the response has been tremendous.”

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