Experienced film and theater professional Dustin Rader back for second year teaching at Maryville College
Dustin Rader, local leader in film, television, and theater, has returned to Maryville College for his second year teaching Acting for the Camera and Scene Design.
Rader joined the Maryville College faculty last year with his Lighting Design class. He continues building on that foundation this year, focusing on fostering creativity and self-expression through design and production.
When asked for advice he wishes to impart upon his students, Rader said, “My advice is to find yourself in your designs and the characters that you are representing for the camera. Revealing part of you will help make a connection with the audience.”
For Rader, the main joy in teaching comes from the unique areas of the performance field. From front-and-center to behind-the-scenes work, every sector of performance is crucial to the finished project.
In the Acting for the Camera course, Rader teaches the differences between on-stage and camera-focused performance. He uses more than 30 years of personal experience in television and film to help students learn the transition between the two art forms. While noting that both are equally important, he said that acting for film can be challenging for stage-based actors due to the switch in exaggeration and performance.
“Acting for the camera is different from theatre,” Rader said. “It isn’t better or worse – just a different process. The lens is like a magnifying glass, exaggerating every word and expression.”
Rader’s Scene Design class draws from his experience designing over 30 theater productions. His students learn how to tell a story on stage by combining color, material, and art. He also wants to instill the importance of design work in the arts.
“Not everyone wants to be on stage,” Rader said. “I think it is important to explore other elements of theatre, such as design.”
Rader has worked in producing, directing and editing everything from commercials to movies and documentaries – and even getting his start with the UT Jumbotron as a student.
In 2001, Rader founded the award-winning television production company Beyond Media, which has worked with networks such as TLC, PBS, HGTV, ESPN and Food Network. The company earned an Emmy for its 2006 production of “Seven Days Inside Tennessee Football.”
Beyond the camera, Rader formed the children’s theater company Broadway Center for the Arts in 2019. The award-winning company produces around 10 plays and musicals annually and involves approximately 80 students per production. There, kids learn how to develop onstage characters and work backstage and behind the scenes to make a production come to life.
Broadway Center for the Arts holds three Junior Theater Festival awards and has a team set to return to the festival in January. The company also formed “Spotlight,” a community outreach program intended to share the joy of theater with the city of Maryville and beyond.
With his second year ahead of him, Rader said he cannot wait to share his love and knowledge of design and performance with Maryville College’s students and is eager to see their growth throughout the year.
Beyond Media Founder Dustin Rader works on record television programming. Photo Courtesy of Dustin Rader