Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson (Professor of Theatre) comes to UIS via Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; Austin, TX, and New York City, among other cities, and has been on faculty at UIS since 2006. Missy received her MFA in Acting from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and her BFA in Drama Education from the University of Texas at Austin. She has also taught at Cornell University, the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, and Illinois College. She has presented papers and appeared in numerous original 10-minute play-readings regularly at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) and the Mid-America Theatre Conference (MATC), and has also presented workshops for Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC), and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). She currently is the Region 3 Chair for KCACTF. In addition to teaching various theatre classes and directing regularly for UIS Theatre, Missy is also an actor and director. Acting credits include: Holoferna in Love’s Labor’s Lost, with Prague. Shakespeare Company, Hawkins in Men on Boats (Chenango River Theatre, NY), Ladybird Johnson in All the Way, M’Lynn in Steel Magnolias (Hoogland Center for the Arts), Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire (UIS Theatre), and Truvy in Steel Magnolias (McLeod Summer Playhouse and Shawnee Summer Theatre). UIS Theatre directing credits include: Twelfth Night, On the Verge...Or the Geography of Yearning, Stop Kiss, Silent Sky, How I Learned to Drive, Distracted, and Machinal.