Faculty and Lecturers

In 1975, Eric Barr began a 37-year career as a founding member and longest-serving chair of UC Riverside’s Theatre Department. In addition to teaching, Barr directed more than 100 productions at UCR and beyond. His screenplays have been finalists and award winners at the Sundance Film Festival and Telluride Indiefest. He was also the artistic director of the Porthouse Theatre in Cleveland, taught acting at the Stella Adler Conservatory in Los Angeles, and worked as an acting coach with the National Theatre of the Deaf.

In May 2013, he suffered a series of devastating strokes that robbed him of his speech, movement, and teaching career. One year later, Barr returned to campus with “A Piece of My Mind,” a one-man show based on challenges he faced during his illness and recovery. He returned again to UCR in 2023 to give a Distinguished Emeritus Dickson Lecture that examined the connections between acting and recovery from life-changing events, and how he was able to use actor training to help reconstruct himself after losing speech, movement, and many cognitive abilities.

Stu Krieger was a professor of screen and television writing in the University of California, Riverside’s Department of Theatre, Film & Digital Production from 2006-2025. He served as Department Chair from March of 2012-June 2016. From 2001-2020 he also taught Producing the Screenplay at the USC Peter Stark MFA Producing Program.

Krieger co-wrote the Emmy winning mini-series A Year in the Life and was nominated for a Humanitas Prize for the Disney Channel original movie, Going to the Mat. Among his other produced credits, Krieger wrote the animated classic The Land Before Time for producers Steven Spielberg & George Lucas, the Don Bluth-directed animated feature film “A Troll in Central Park” and ten original movies for the Disney Channel, including Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century and its two sequels, Tru Confessions, Smart House, Phantom of the Megaplex, and Cow Belles.

His first novel, “That One Cigarette,” was published by Harvard Square Editions in November 2017. His stage play, “At the Pass” was produced in the spring of 2020 by the UCR Department of Theatre, Film & Digital Production, directed by Professor Bella Merlin, presented via Zoom to an audience of more than 2000 viewers.

In April 2015, Professor Krieger delivered a well-received TEDx Talk entitled “Choose Joy.” To access it, please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v02wrQ-OSA

His second novel, “RAFT” was published in the spring of 2023 by PipeVine Press. The audio book, featuring performances by Stu, his wife Hillary and their children Gus and Rosie will be available on Audible in December 2025.