Meet the ACT Team

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Steven Marzolf

Steven Marzolf is one of the founders of Arkansas Classical Theatre and has been a professional actor, director and teacher for over 20 years. He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and has acted and directed with many of the top theatres in the country. He has taught acting classes nationwide and Acting Shakespeare’s Folio with professional companies as well as numerous universities.

Steven holds an MFA in acting from The Old Globe Theatre/University of San Diego Professional Actor Training Program. He is the Head of Undergraduate Performance at the University of Arkansas.

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Betsy Jilka

Elizabeth "Betsy" Jilka is one of the founding members of Arkansas Classical Theatre. She has performed locally and regionally, including but not limited to TheatreSquared, Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre, and Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. Betsy has taught acting and singing from New York to Maine to Arkansas and beyond. In addition, she is a voiceover artist.

Betsy is an Instructor of Theatre at the University of Arkansas and holds a BA in Music and an MFA in Acting.

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David Jolliffe

David Jolliffe recently retired as Professor of English and Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas, a position he held from 2005 to 2018. With over four decades of experience as an actor and a director in academic, community, and professional theaters in West Virginia (his home state), Texas, Illinois, and Arkansas, he collaborated with Ashley Edwards, Michael Landman, Jennie Taylor Swain, and Kathleen Trotter to establish the Latinx Theatre Project (then known as the Latinx Youth Theatre Project) in 2016, and has served as the Project’s Executive Producer since then. In addition to his work with the LXTP, David collaborated with Justin Scheuer, Virginia Scheuer, and Brian McCue to found the Classical Edge Theatre Company, which produces free, outdoor performances of William Shakespeare’s plays in Bentonville. He has acted in five Classical Edge productions. 

David is also on the Board of Directors of the Prison Story Project and performs a role in its staged reading of On the Row, a script assembled from the writing of 11 men housed on Arkansas’ Death Row.