Finding the Method in the Efforts: A Movement Based Acting Prcoess

Terri Kent is a renowned theatre artist with forty-plus years of experience. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). Terri is the Producing Artistic Director of Porthouse Theatre, the professional company affiliated with Kent State University, where she also serves as Professor and head of the nationally acclaimed BFA Musical Theatre program. Terri’s directing career spans four decades and over one hundred productions. Favorites include Jesus Christ Superstar, The Music Man, The Sound of Music, Hair, Cabaret, Urinetown, Into the Woods, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Man of La Mancha, Godspell, Children of Eden, My Fair Lady, Anything Goes, Brigadoon, and Oklahoma. Terri has acted nationally and internationally and has received multiple awards from Cleveland Critics Circle. Her acting credits include Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, the title role in Hello Dolly, Desiree in A Little Night Music, Mrs. Cratchit in A Christmas Carol, and the mother in Quilters. In 1990, Terri travelled to India as a Fulbright Professor, where she directed Steel Magnolias in New Delhi and Macbeth in Maudurai. At Kent State she has won many awards including the President’s Excellence Award and the Centennial Award, the highest awards granted to faculty by the University and the College of the Arts, respectively. 

When Terri is not directing, teaching, or acting, she enjoys crafting, reading, and vacationing at the beach. Terri feels blessed to be in a long-term successful marriage with another theatre artist, Rohn Thomas. Rohn and Terri met playing Adelaide and Nathan in Guys and Dolls, and eloped three days after the show closed. She is mother to four adult children, Hunter, Morgan, Sam, and Kaishawn. She is often surrounded by fur babies Button and Binky, and is rarely seen without her dear companion Bean, the dog. Terri believes in the power of the theatre to transform lives!