About Asa
Asa Leininger is an actor, playwright, theatre historian, and educator whose work examines the intersections of performance, historical inquiry, and pedagogy. He holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in Theatre and History from Missouri State University and a TEFL certificate from the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya. Drawing upon professional experience in performance, dramaturgy, directing, technical theatre, and education across the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean, his practice investigates theatre as both an artistic discipline and a mode of intellectual inquiry.
His scholarship and creative work are united by an interest in the ethical and civic capacities of performance. He is particularly interested in how historical and dramatic texts invite audiences and practitioners to interrogate questions of identity, memory, power, and moral responsibility. His interdisciplinary approach combines historical research with embodied practice, treating performance as a means of generating knowledge rather than merely illustrating it.
As an educator, Leininger has taught theatre, history, economics, and English as a foreign language in a wide range of educational settings. His pedagogical philosophy emphasizes collaborative learning, critical reflection, and experiential practice, encouraging students to engage rigorously with complex texts while developing the intellectual and creative confidence to question, interpret, and create.
In addition to his work as a performer and teacher, Leininger has written and produced original plays, published poetry, contributed dramaturgical research, and worked extensively in technical theatre and historical interpretation. Across these varied disciplines, he remains committed to exploring how performance can deepen historical understanding, foster intercultural dialogue, and cultivate thoughtful engagement with the human experience.
Actor
No stranger to the stage and recipient of multiple awards for his performances at Springfield Little Theatre, Asa has acted, danced, sung, and accompanied others on the piano in upwards of 30 musicals, plays, operas, interactive symphony concerts, and cabarets over the span of a decade. In that time, he has also performed in multiple regional commercial advertisements as well as both semi-professional and educational short films. Trained in Linklater voice and movement and adhering to the acting techniques first formulated by Konstantin Stanislavski, Asa strives to bring to light the inherent humanity of every role he plays with poetic gravitas and brutal honesty.Writer
Proficient in many types of literature, Asa has written award winning short stories, poems that have been published in poetry magazines, and plays that have been performed as parts of fringe festivals. His plays have been well regarded - with his most recent being praised for its clever writing and described as a cross between Shakespeare's King Lear and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Likewise, he recently self-published his first collection of Sonnets with the help of KDP Amazon. In addition to these more creative endeavors, Asa has also written numerous historical research papers - mostly concerned with the Baltic and North Sea world during the Late Medieval Era - and been awarded for his dramaturgical research at Missouri State University. The foci of his works span from the incorrigible nature of humanity and the mechanisms of class warfare to the ever-elusive definition of love to the intersectional relationship between religion and economics in socio-political revolutions in Medieval Europe.Educator
Teaching in various capacities for nearly half a decade, Asa utilizes Cooperative and Active Learning methodologies to inform structure of his class offerings. In the theatre, he has crafted classes around the disciplines of music, dance, acting, stagecraft, stage combat, and theatrical and literary history that encourage students to actively engage their mimetic muscles, develop constructive social relationships with their peers, and engage in vital self-reflection and critical analysis of the world. As a former Registered Behavior Technician, he has utilized behavioral psychology strategies to effectively promote information retention, develop motor skills, and reinforce positive social behaviors. As teacher of English as foreign language, he has worked diligently to provide students with comprehensive language input in stimulating environments while simultaneously enabling them to use the tools necessary for the autonomous reproduction.