Professor
B.A. English, University of California, Berkeley
M.F.A. Directing, University of California, Irvine
Pronouns: She/Her
At UMBC, Colette Searls teaches acting, directing and puppetry, and has directed over twenty productions, including award-winning works of puppetry/material performance. Other directing credits include Albert’s Dream at the Brilliant Baltimore international arts festival, Noah Haidle’s Vigils at The Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (four Helen Hayes Award nominations), and Fixed Boundary at San Francisco’s Exit Theatre (Best of the San Francisco Fringe Festival). Searls has received grants from the Jim Henson Foundation, The Maryland State Arts Council, and Puppeteers of America for her original works in found-object puppetry for the stage and screen.
She is author of A Galaxy of Things: the Power of Puppets and Masks in Star Wars and Beyond (2024 Nancy Staub Publications Award recipient), and performance review editor for the journal Puppetry International Research (PIR). Searls has lectured internationally on intersections between puppetry and animation, and has collaborated with dancers and animators; her experiments with Lynn Tomlinson resulted in an award-winning digital puppet app which has been used in her live performances and presented at conferences internationally. Searls has also worked in the non-profit sector bridging the arts with human services; she has produced plays and organized artist residencies inside California state prisons and juvenile detention facilities.