Bud Beyer

Bud Beyer, Professor Emeritus in Theatre, Northwestern University, joined the faculty in 1972 and served as head of the acting program until 1989, when he was chosen to chair the Department of Theatre. He stepped down as chair in 2002, and retired from Northwestern in 2008. Professor Beyer was also founder and director of the Northwestern University Mime Company established in 1972, which toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe. A member of SAG, AEA, and AFTRA, Bud has professional credits as an actor, director, and theatre manager, and he has taught intensive scene study for professional actors in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. He has conducted workshops in mime and acting for colleges, universities, and festivals across the United States. He published, with Charlotte Lee, Speaking of Theatre (Scott Foresman and Company, 1974). He is also author of Completing the Circle: Considerations for Change in the Performance of Music (GIA, 2014). He was featured in The New Generation of Acting Teachers, written by Eva Meckler (1988) and Acting Teachers of America, a vital tradition by Ronald Rand and Luigi Scorcia (2007).

During the past thirty years, Bud has presented lectures and workshops on gesture and movement for orchestral and band conductors throughout the country. He gave yearly residencies at the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. In recent years, he has been working with professional musicians and has given workshops for entire orchestras, singers, instrumentalists, and conductors in Norway. He is working with the Grieg Academy in Bergen and with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra in Oslo, exploring new approaches to the training of musicians and the performance of music. A Norwegian research and performance project, EUIPAF (The Explosive, Unforeseeable Instant of Musical Performance: Applications and Foundations), will examine artistic projects in collaboration with Bud and his concepts and process for emotional connection within the framework of musical interpretation and performance. A thirty-minute documentary of his work, Smile, You Have an Audience, is available on Norwegian Educational Television.