Our People

Marcus Denard Johnson serves as the Interim Director of the FSU/Asolo Conservatory.  He is a 2008 graduate of the Conservatory and has since worked consistently in Theatre as a theatre administrator, theatre administrator, actor, and director.  For 10 years Marcus served as a Resident Artist for Titan Theatre Company in New York City, later becoming Artistic Associate and Director of Titan’s Future Classics Festival.  During his time in New York, Marcus also served as the Director of Programs for Opening Act, Inc., an arts education non-profit dedicated to providing free theatre programs to New York City’s most underserved schools. He currently serves as an Executive Board member of Our Bar, Inc., a site-specific theatre company in New York City founded in part by Conservatory graduates.  After leaving New York, he became a part of the artistic leadership team of Hope Repertory Theatre in Holland, Michigan, spending his final year with Hope Rep as the Artistic Director. Marcus holds an MFA from the FSU/Asolo Conservatory and MS in Adolescent Special Education from Hunter College. He is on leave as Assistant Professor of Theatre at Columbus State University, making it possible to return to the Conservatory in this Interim capacity. 

Has performed on and Off-Broadway, in London’s West End, and at dozens of regional theatres across the country, but is best known for his 25-year association as actor, director and teacher with Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. His roles with that company have included everything from kings to clowns – Lear, Macbeth, Richard III, Feste, Touchstone, Dogberry, Puck, Benedick, Bottom and scores of others. He was text and sonnet teacher in more than 30 of the company’s month-long workshops for professional actors. Directing credits there include Henry V, Coriolanus, Women of Will, The Hollow Crown, The Pretext and The Verdict among others. He has served as visiting professor in Theatre at MIT and in Rhetoric at Boston University School of Law and has led master classes in Shakespeare performance at such companies as Berkshire Theater Festival, Orlando Shakespeare Festival, The Intiman, Seattle Shakespeare Theatre, Boston Theaterworks as well as at colleges and universities including Harvard , Cornell, Amherst, Dartmouth, Smith, Western Michigan and Wake Forest. His other performance credits include: Broadway/National Tour: (A Meeting by the River, Man of la Mancha, Dirty Dancing) American Repertory Theatre (Merchant of Venice, Paradise Lost, Phaedra, Picasso at the Lapin Agile), Berkshire Theatre Festival (Amadeus, Cuckoo’s Nest, Caretaker, Via Dolorosa, Rat in the Skull), The Shakespeare Theatre (Taming of the Shrew), Intiman (Cymbeline), Theatre for a New Audience (Merchant of Venice), Orlando Shakespeare Theater (King Lear, Titus Andronicus), The Young Vic (Faust), He is a two-time recipient of Boston’s Elliot Norton award. He holds an AB from Harvard University, where he studied Elizabethan and Jacobean drama under Gwynn Blakemore Evans, William Alfred, and Harry Levin.

Patricia Delorey is a Certified Associate Fitzmaurice Voicework Teacher with an M.F.A. in Voice and Speech from the Moscow Art Theatre/American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. Patricia teaches voice & dialects at the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training. She is also the resident voice & dialect coach at the Asolo Repertory Theatre where some of her favorite productions include: Knoxville, Silent Sky, Sweat, Sweeney Todd, The Cake, The Crucible, Gloria, Ragtime, Rhinoceros, Roe, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, The Great Society, Josephine, All The Way, Living on Love, West Side Story, Sotto Voce, Other Desert Cities, South Pacific, The Grapes of Wrath, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Clybourne Park, The Innocents, Twelve Angry Men, Bonnie & Clyde, Doubt, A Few Good Men, A Tale of Two Cities, Equus. Other credits include: The Smuggler (Urbanite Theatre), Pitmen Painters (American Stage Theatre), Studio Six’s production of Plasticine (The Baryshnikov Arts Center), Saturday Night Fever (Royal Caribbean International Cruises), Stone Cold Dead Serious (American Repertory Theatre), and the world premiere of Nocturne (American Repertory Theatre).

DeAnna S. Wright serves as a Visiting Professor of Theatre at the FSU Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training, where she also earned her Master of Fine Arts in Acting in 2019. A native of Florida, DeAnna completed her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Florida and her Associate of Arts at Santa Fe College. DeAnna is a multifaceted artist, engaging in singing and rhythmic movement. Her diverse career has seen her perform in theatre, film, and television productions nationwide. Alongside her artist career, DeAnna has a rich history in the education and coaching arena which has also been centered in the arts.

Mr. Wheatley is an English writer who was brought up in and around London. He took his first degree and M.A. from Cambridge University and began his professional career making documentaries for the BBC. There followed a two-year spell writing for series and serials at the BBC (EastEnders) and some short plays for BBC Education before he began writing for the theatre. From 1990 to 1997, he was the principal writer/adaptor for Complicité and their Literary Manager. He has divided his time between playwriting and screenwriting ever since. He is also a teacher and has taught for many universities in both the UK and the US. He is currently working on a drama for BBC Films and a new play for the theatre.