Jim Rambo is a retired professor of theatre having served at three different colleges over a 39-year period. He is a long time UIL adjudicator having judged well over 250 contests. He feels honored to judge state UIL one act play contests 9 times and is the 1-A acting judge for 2025. He serves as a clinician for UIL and TAPPS with middle and high schools. He has conducted many acting and directing workshops at TxETA Theatrefest, Texas Thespians and for many high schools across the state on their home campus. He currently teaches privately with Studio Rambo. He is the adjudicator coordinator for Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools one act play contest and has served as an adjudicator for American College Theater Festival and the Palm Awards. He has served as President of Texas Educational Theatre Association and was the second Chairperson for Texas Theatre Adjudicators Organization. Jim received six directing awards from American College Theater Festival. We was named the 1985 Educator of the Year for Community/Junior colleges with Texas Educational Theatre Association. His production of Melanie Marnich’s QUAKE was a Region VI festival winner and was named an alternate for the national Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival in 2003. Jim is a Founder’s Award recipient with Texas Educational Theatre Association and was also honored in 2018 with the coveted Emeritus Award. He currently serves on the TxETA Financial Advisory Committee and is Chair of the TxETA Leadership Development Committee. He has been nominated two times for the Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award and was also a nominee for The Carnegie Foundation for Teaching Excellence. “Rambo” continues to be a devoted disciple of educational theatre and joyfully learns from student and professional performers, technicians, designers, directors, playwrights and fellow adjudicators.

Dean Nolen (Associate Professor of Acting, School of Theatre & Dance at Texas Tech University) received his Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University (Constance Welch Scholar) and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre and Music from Hardin-Simmons University. An award-winning actor, Nolen has originated roles in over a dozen new American plays and musicals from Broadway, where he starred as Harry Bright in the original Broadway cast of Mamma Mia! to off-Broadway, creating the role of Terence in Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vasillaros’ critically-acclaimed Pulitzer-Prize finalist Omnium Gatherum, as well as the role of Jeffrey in Rob Ackerman’s Tabletop, for which he received a 2001 Drama Desk Award. In 2018, Nolen rejoined playwrights Rob Ackerman and Theresa Rebeck, who directed the latter’s new play Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson, for its sold-out premiere and off-Broadway run. Other New York credits include Manhattan Theatre Club, The Working Theatre, VOICETheatre, and Naked Angels Theatre Company as well as major regional theatres including Yale Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Geva Theatre, The Wilma Theater, Dallas Theater Center, The Alley Theatre, Lyric Stage, Virginia Stage Company, TheaterWorks, and New Stage Theatre, among others. Guest-starring roles in television series include Judge Wade Gimball on “FBI: Most Wanted,” Philip Montrose on “Law and Order: SVU,” Nigel Hammaker on “Mercy,” Dan Enright on “Law and Order,” among others.  An accomplished director and writer, Nolen helmed the world premiere of Miki Bone’s Division Avenue for the Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York City (MITF Award for Outstanding Direction and Production) and a subsequent production for Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, as well as the U.S. and International premieres of Shauna Kanter’s Birds On a Wire for the International Festival Fringe, Edinburgh, Scotland. As a writer, he collaborated on the book for the Larry Gatlin musical TEXAS FLYER (also director) and served as editor of The Film Encyclopedia, by Ephraim Katz, published by HarperCollins. He co-produced the documentary “None Less than Heroes,” a film about the Honor Flight program which brings World War II veterans to Washington, D.C. to visit memorials built in their honor. Nolen is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild (SAG/AFTRA), National Alliance of Acting Teachers, Texas Educational Theatre Association, Musical Theatre Educators Alliance, Theatre Communications Group, Tau Alpha Phi, and Alpha Psi Omega – National Honorary Dramatic Fraternity.