Robert H. Davis, a Professor of Theatre in Acting and Voice & Speech, is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher with more than 25 years experience as a professional actor, director and voice/dialect coach. He received his Bachelor's degree in Drama from Kenyon College and the Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting from Ohio University.
Davis has worked with regional theatres across the country including Shakespeare & Company, the Yale Repertory Theatre, Goodspeed Musicals, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Shakespeare Festival at Tulane, the Monomoy Theatre on Cape Cod and Swine Palace Productions in Louisiana. He received a Connecticut Critics Circle Award for his performance in The Exonerated at TheaterWorks of Hartford and has appeared regularly at Hartford Stage in productions of Romeo and Juliet, Kiss Me Kate, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Christmas Carol, Our Town (sharing the role of the Stage Manager with Hal Holbrook), several roles in the Brand:New play festival and many staged readings including Stuff Happens and Horton Foote's Shape of River with Kate Mulgrew. Once upon a time he appeared on television's Sesame Street as the Rhythm Chef.
An award-winning teacher, Davis has been a project director for the National Endowment for the Humanities and a senior faculty member for the NEH National Institutes on Teaching Shakespeare. He has served on the teaching faculty at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass where he taught in professional training workshops and education programs funded by the NEH, NEA and Massachusetts Cultural Council. He is a consultant for Prospero, LLC, a management consulting company that delivers workshops in leadership, communication and presentation skills to major corporations. He has also been a guest faculty member at Trinity College, Wesleyan University, the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Theatre Institute and for the education program at Goodspeed Musicals. In New York, he was a member of Joanne Woodward's Actor's Group of New York and appeared with the Shadowfax Theatre Company.
Prior to his appointment at The Hartt School, Davis was on the faculty of Louisiana State University's Department of Theatre where he taught in the M.F.A. acting program and served as associate department chairman. He received two university awards for excellence in teaching at LSU. While at LSU he created the BellSouth Institute on Teaching Shakespeare.
In 2013 he received the University of Hartford's Bent Award for Scholarly and Artistic Creativity.
Note: This faculty member will be on sabbatical for Fall 2024. During a sabbatical, faculty may not be available to support students or conduct other University business.