Faculty & Staff
Katherine Farmer
Katherine Farmer, Interim Director-Noorda Center
Katherine Farmer is the Interim Director of the Noorda Regional Theatre Center for Children and Youth at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. She is a specialist in theatre for young audiences, script and text analysis, children’s literature, and process drama. She has a long history as a director, storyteller, teacher and critic in the field and has taught courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels at Brigham Young University and most recently at Utah Valley University (formerly Utah Valley State College.)
One of Katherine’s primary artistic and research interests has been the analysis of story‐based texts. Over the last thirty‐years she has investigated texts that target audiences of different age and interest levels with stories that have been discoursed through a range of media. By taking an inter‐disciplinary and multi‐perspective approach to their analysis she has isolated key elements and dynamics linked to perceptions of a work’s quality and appeal. She has also developed structural models and analytical tools capable of making an understanding of these findings practically useful and theoretically relevant to those who write, select, and enact plays for young audiences, and to those who use drama in the classroom setting. She is currently writing a text book on the topic entitled The Code Breaker: A New and Semiotic Approach to the Analysis and Teaching of Story‐Based Texts.
Over the years, Katie has addressed numerous organizations, including the Children’s Theatre Association of America and the New England Round Table of Children’s Librarians. In August she will be presenting at the 2009 combined AATE and ATHE conference: “Risking Innovation” in New York City.
Katherine received her B.A. at the University of Washington in acting and directing and a M.A. at Brigham Young University in dramatic theory and criticism. She has completed course requirements for a Ph.D. at Brigham Young University in Theatre for Young Audiences. She is married to Larry C. Farmer. Together they are the parents of six children.