Adjunct Professors of Theatre
Annie Kahane
Adjunct Professor of Theatre
Annie Kahane is a performer and maker working in performance poetry, dance, song, and theater. Her performance works have been supported by the San Francisco International Arts Festival, New Music USA, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, ODC Theater and the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. Her poetry has been featured on KQED San Francisco Public Radio and WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. She holds Bachelors’ degrees in Dance and Creative Writing from Northwestern University and an MFA in Choreography from UCLA’s school of World Arts & Cultures/Dance, where she currently teaches as a Lecturer. She is pleased to join the Pepperdine Theatre program!
Robin Larsen
Adjunct Professor of Theatre
Robin Larsen is a Los Angeles-based theatre director known for “so many superlative productions” (Hollywood Reporter). She is the recipient of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing and is the Founding Artistic Director of Lobby Theatre, in residence at AGBO Films in downtown Los Angeles. Dedicated to plays and playwrights that illuminate the social and moral challenges of the 21st century, Lobby premiered in 2023 with Pulitzer Prize-finalist Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is.
Robin’s work has been seen at South Coast Repertory, The Wallis Annenberg Center, Disney Hall (with the LA Philharmonic), and Antaeus Company, among others. As a founding member of Rogue Machine Theater, Robin directed the west coast premiere of Joel Drake Johnson’s Four Places, which won the Ovation, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, and Backstage Garland Awards for Best Production. Also for Rogue Machine, she staged the Los Angeles premiere of David Harrower’s Blackbird (LA Times, LA Weekly, Huffington Post, KCRW “Best of Year” lists, and LA Times “Best Theatre of the Decade”). Regional and world premieres include the world premiere of Keith Huff’s Pursued by Happiness, the west coast premiere of Jesse Eisenberg’s The Revisionist, starring Tony-winner Deanna Dunagan, the west coast premiere of Joel Drake Johnson’s The Fall to Earth at the Odyssey Theatre, starring JoBeth Williams, and the Los Angeles premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s I and You at the Fountain Theatre.
Robin was born and raised in Miami, Florida, and attended the New World School of the Arts in downtown Miami. After a four-year stop in Dallas, TX, where she earned a BFA in Acting from SMU, she continued west to Los Angeles, where another degree followed: an MFA in Film Directing/Production from UCLA. While at UCLA, she won the Student Academy Award, the DGA Student Film Award, and the Princess Grace Award. After grad school, Robin collaborated on numerous film and TV projects with Joe and Anthony Russo, wrote for Imagine Entertainment and Universal Pictures, and had her work screen internationally at Cannes and Berlinale and stateside at Tribeca and Austin. Robin is a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Guild and an emeritus member of the Writer’s Guild of America.
Noelle Rodriguez
Adjunct Professor of Theatre
Noelle Dominique Rodriguez is a vibrant, expressive, playful Xicana and Indigenous artist whose curiosity knows no bounds. Obsessed with clowning, commedia dell'arte, and wordplay, she channels her passion for performance into revitalizing language and culture through dynamic exploration. Drawing inspiration from her East LA roots and ancestral homelands in Mexico and the USA, Noelle is on a continuous journey of learning her native languages and understanding decolonization of herself through theater. Her transformative work has taken her to London, where she led a powerful Theater of the Oppressed workshop for young women of color, diving deep into identity, intersectionality, and collective hope. Now teaching Voice and Movement at Pepperdine University, Noelle earned her MFA in Linklater Teaching Practice from Rose Bruford College and is a Designated Linklater Teacher (DLT). She helps actors connect with their bodies, voices, and emotions. Noelle knows theater's transformative power and is dedicated to creating brave, supportive spaces where individuals can explore their identities, express themselves, and connect with their cultural heritage.
Shadow Zimmerman
Adjunct Professor of Theatre
Dr. Shadow Zimmerman serves as a Theatre Arts adjunct faculty member at Pepperdine University. He holds a PhD in Theatre History and Theory from the University of Washington School of Drama. Shadow has worked extensively as a lighting designer professionally and academically, recently for Long Beach City College and Pomona College. He has also presented multiple times at regional and national conferences, and his work has been/will be featured in The Figure of the Monster in Global Theatre, The Black Theatre Review, and Theatre Symposium. His research primarily interrogates the racial intersections and limitations of liberalism and the (historical) avant-garde, but he has also published and presented on theatre and the Year of Africa, staging artifacts and museology, the Black Arts Movement, and medieval and ancient performance history and theory. In production and in the classroom, he is grateful to mentor students of many backgrounds and many aspirations