Matt Foss, Ph.D. ‘13, graduated with a B.A. in conservation biology from Northwestern College, yet he still wanted to pursue the arts. At the suggestion of an advisor, he did. Foss moved to Chicago and earned an M.F.A. in theatre from Roosevelt University. 

“My folks say I was always writing my own plays and figuring things out around stories,” he said. 

While producing his own plays in the Windy City, he thought a Ph.D. might afford him new “risks at a rate and level” to which he was unaccustomed. He wanted a formative challenge, and said he got that at Wayne State University. 

“WSU’s blend of praxis and theory was really rare, and when I got to Detroit, it was amazing—my job was to read and wrestle with ideas about the theatre and then go out and try it.  The best way to learn theatre is to do theatre, and I was cramming in decades of learning—and mistakes—into semesters at a time. It was amazing.” 

He took advantage of the WSU study abroad program Month in Moscow (MIM), where students spend a month over the summer at the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia, undergoing a conservatory-based training regimen during the day and exploring Moscow, attending theatre productions around the city and visiting museums, at night. 

“It really helped me start to make sense and build rigor around my imagination. Things really took off after that summer.” 

Now an assistant professor of theatre at the University of Toledo, Foss still takes advantage of the program by taking his own students. He has also taken his own plays to Moscow twice--an adaptation of The Glass Menagerie a few years ago, and an adaptation of The Little Prince last summer, alongside WSU’s Motor City Cabaret, a theatre outreach program run by WSU students. 

A fan of the classics, Foss said playwriting can be cost prohibitive and approaches to new work can unfortunately be siloed. In a way, reworking existing texts is inherently theatrical, he said. “Greek texts were adaptations of familiar myths--Roman plays reworkings of those. Shakespeare had maybe two original plots, the rest were adaptations. So, it’s an impulse that always kind of made sense.” 

Coming from a family of teachers, teaching has been its own natural impulse for Foss. 

“Artistically, working with a ready-made ensemble each day in a ready-made laboratory of ideas and creativity is really energy giving.” 

At any one time, Foss could be writing, directing and building sets. Seeing a theatrical production from an idea to the stage can involve quite a bit of multidisciplinary work. 

“I usually spend a lot of time hammering as much as I do typing or rehearsing.” 

Foss has produced multiple award-winning plays, including his adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (2014), which earned Chicago Jeff Award nominations for Outstanding Production, Director and Ensemble, and won for Best New Adaptation; and his production of Six Characters (2012), which won Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival's National Award for Outstanding Production of a Play and Outstanding Director of a Play. He was also a recipient of the ATHE/KCACTF Prize for Innovative Teaching in 2013.