Tara Young
Interim Executive Director | Professor of Theatre
Office: SPAC 238B
- B.A. 1996, Southern Illinois University
- M.F.A. 2002, Southern Illinois University
Tara Young is Acting Executive Director of the newly established School of the Arts and Professor of Theatre at Idaho State University, where she has served since 2002 as Resident Costume Designer. As the inaugural leader of this new interdisciplinary school launching in fall 2026, she is helping shape its vision and future. She holds an MFA in Theatre Design from Southern Illinois University. An award-winning costume designer, Young has worked with opera, theatre, and musical companies nationwide, earning multiple Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival honors. She is dedicated to innovative arts education, creative scholarship, collaboration, and meaningful community engagement.
Paul Yeates
Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance | Associate Professor of Theatre
Office: SPAC 240A
- B.F.A. Utah State University
- B.A. Utah State University
- M.F.A. University of Connecticut
Joined ISU Faculty in 2017
Paul Yeates is an Assistant Professor of Scenic & Lighting Design at Idaho State University. He received an MFA in Lighting Design from the University of Connecticut, as well as a BFA in Technical Theatre and Design and a BA in Journalism & Communications from Utah State University. He is a member of USITT, was invited to participate in the Hemsley Portfolio Review; the most prestigious review held for lighting designer graduate students, at the Lincoln Center in New York City and a past participant at KCACTF with his lighting design for The Glass Menagerie. Previous to his appointment at ISU he was Assistant Professor at Morehead State University in Kentucky for three years. Paul has worked around the country in various lighting and scenic design positions as both designer and assistant designer. Some of these include: Western Wyoming Community College, Lyric Repertory Company, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, The University of Montana Western, The Atlantic Theatre Company in New York, BYU Hawaii, Hartford Stage Company and the Tony award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival.
Dr. Marcia Lloyd
Professor Emeritus of Dance
- B.S. University of Central Missouri
- M.A. University of Wyoming
- Ed.D. University of Utah
ISU Faculty from 1976 - 2001
Dr. Marcia Lloyd is an Idaho dance educator and an accomplished writer for dance who travels the world sharing and teaching dance education. She has published many articles about dance education including “Pioneering dance education: Forging a pathway for the future” (in the book “Perspectives on Dance Education” in 2017). Her book “Creative dance: A manual for teaching all ages” was published in 2014 by the University of Malaya Press in Kuala Lumpur. She taught at ISU for 25 years before retiring in 2001. She taught many forms of dance, but specialized in creative dance. She created a dance minor at ISU that includes dance technique, theory and dance education courses. She was also a visiting professor of dance at several Malaysian universities from 1977 to 2015 and was a Fulbright professor of dance to the University of Malaya and Universiti Sains Malaysia in 1999. In 2017, Lloyd received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Dance Education Organization.
Dr. Norm Schroder
Professor Emeritus of Theatre
- B.A. 1978, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
- M.A. 1988, Bowling Green State University
- Ph.D. 1994, Bowling Green State University
ISU Faculty from 1999 - 2021
Emeritus Faculty
Frances E. Bliesner, Professor of Theatre 1967-1995
Allen Blomquist, Professor of Theatre 1958-1999
Sherri Dienstfrey, Professor of Theatre 1987-2018
Norman Schroder, Professor of Theatre 1999-2021