Gwendolyn Starks
PhD – Theology & Arts
MCS – ARTS
BFA – Acting
On Monday, March 14, 2016, at McMaster Divinity College’s Chapel, Gwendolyn Starks will present the premiere of her new one-woman play: “Dorothy in Wonderland”.
Read Gwendolyn’s description of her play: Dorothy L. Sayers has just died. How do we know this? Well, her spirit, standing guard over the body has told us so. While she waits to be discovered, rather than succumb to an autobiographical re-hashing of her past, Dorothy takes the opportunity to expound her wit and wisdom and, of course, her particular theological notions to a captive audience.
Gwendolyn Starks has been involved in the creative arts as an actor, director, writer, instructor, and designer in Canada and the UK for over thirty-five years. As a professional actor she has performed roles such as Anne of Green Gables, and Ms Darbus, in high school musicals; leading TV roles with Wayne and Schuster, Jane Eastwood, and David Carradine; and numerous TV commercials and corporate videos. She has directed Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, and Wilde, as well as multi-arts performance collaborations. Gwendolyn’s one-woman play: “The Living Light: The Visionary Life of Hildegarde von Bingen” sold out at the Toronto Fringe.
While performing, parenting, teaching, speaking, writing, and directing, Gwendolyn completed her Ph.D. at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Her thesis was entitled: “‘A Proper Job:” Acting as Work and Vocation in Theological Perspective with Particular Reference to Dorothy L. Sayers.’ On her return to Canada, she immediately began to support home-educating families with high school English, arts, and theatre classes, and has been a part-time theatre instructor at Redeemer University.
Gwendolyn is a member of Canadian Actor’s Equity, Waterdown Village Theatre, and the Dorothy L. Sayers Society. She is a board member for Historic Waterdown Arts and Culture and is affiliated with the Semaphore Fellowship of Artists. Her current projects include: writing Becoming Dorothy, a 40-minute monologue as the writer/theologian Dorothy L Sayers, and she is the facilitator of the FeatherBreath series on the written and spoken word at the Flagship Gallery on James Street North, Hamilton, Ontario.
She has taught courses on various topics such as:
· Theatre: Acting, Liturgical Theatre, Drama Ministries, Communication
· Creative Writing: short story, monologues, plays and adaptations
· Sayers: The Woman Who “Singlehandedly put the British Church Back on Track”
· E Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake): Canadian Poet and Dramatist
· The Feather on the Breath of God: Hildegarde von Bingen, Artist, Healer, and Visionary
· The Inklings Not So Inkling: Writers Who Shaped the Thought of Lewis and Tolkien
· The Human, the Monster, and the Imago Dei: An Arts and Literature Study
· Why Should We Teach Shakespeare?
· Character Study: Performing a Biographical Narrative