5.10 A Conversation with Dr. Kate Busselle

Kate is the founder of Heartland Intimacy Design & Training, an intimacy training company which offers academic, accessible, and affordable intimacy training entirely online. She has taught several workshops on staging intimacy, as well as designing intimacy for several productions. Her specific area of expertise is staging sexual trauma and assault and how to assist actors in leaving these moments behind in the theatre. Kate is also Assistant Professor of Movement and Stage Combat at the University of Oklahoma. She completed her Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Missouri in 2019, making her the first intimacy expert with a doctorate. Kate has been staging intimacy and developing intimacy pedagogy for 8 years and has taught several workshops on staging intimacy, presented on dozens of academic panels, written and contributed to many articles on theatrical intimacy, and has been designing intimacy for several productions. Kate is an Actor Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD). She is also a member of the Association of Movement Theatre Educators (ATME), Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE).