Adilah Barnes, an award-winning actor, has over 30 years of acting experience. Although best-known to television audiences for her role as Anne Marie on ABC's “Roseanne” for five seasons, she began her stage career as a teen in Project Upward Bound at California State University, Chico. Other notable stage credits include Martha Pentecost in August Wilson's award-winning play, Joe Turner's Come and Gone at both the Los Angeles Theatre Center and the American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco. Ms. Barnes was a company member in other California theater productions such as A Christmas Carol and Piano. She received a DramaLogue Award for Outstanding Performance in the San Francisco Julian 
Theatre's Jo Anne! and Bay Area Critics Circle Award nominations for both Jo Anne! and Daddy, which played in San Francisco. During January 2001, Adilah was Artist-In-Residence at Michigan State University while she lectured and also performed in The Bridge Party.
Her recent film credits include co-starring roles in the blockbuster and Award-winning Erin Brockovich with Julia Roberts.. Her many guest-starring television credits include a recurring role on CBS's “City of Angels” and WB's “Jack and Jill.”
Ms. Barnes has toured extensively coast-to-coast with her one-woman show, I Am That I Am; Woman, Black. Now in its eleventh season, the show has toured nationally in almost thirty states and became international in 2000 when she performed in Rotterdam, Holland. I Am That I Am; Woman, Black has been on the touring rosters of The California Arts Council, Nevada Arts Council, and Utah Arts Council. Ms. Barnes has also toured nationally with the African American Drama Company of San Francisco and Women on a Mission.
Ms. Barnes earned her B.A. in Theatre Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she was elected in 1998 to the prestigious UCSC Alumni Council. She also taught three years at the American Conservatory Theatre in several acting programs including the highly competitive Advanced Training Program. She has taught at other institutions including The Los Angeles Theatre Center, Maria Gibbs' Crossroads and the San Francisco School of Dramatic Arts. Co-founder of the Los Angeles Women 's Theatre Festival, Ms. Barnes currently serves as Executive Producer, and President of the Board of Directors. She also teaches privately in North Hollywood and writes. Her current project is another one-woman show on the life of her mother, Just Call Her a Woman of the Soil.
Ms Barnes will be presenting her play I Am That I Am; Woman, Black at UNO on March 5 and then again at UNK on March 8. Scheduling appearances on both campuses allows us to cut down her honorarium and also split the travel costs for Ms. Barnes during the week she is in NE. Ms Barnes’ presentation will benefit all students at UNK and the community because of her historical portrayal of such important historical and political figures as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Maya Angelou, and Angela Davis, just to name a few. Ms. Barnes has also agreed to teach a UNK theater class on “Breaking Into Hollywood”and to give a small performance in the Kearney community for school children which will be coordinated by Phyllis Harris. Her performance is being co-sponsored with the Department of Multicultural Affairs.
Barbara Lounsberry is the Nonfiction Editor of The North American Review, the oldest literary magazine in the United States. She is the author or editor of four books: The Art of Fact: Contemporary Artists of Nonfiction (1990), The Writer in You (1992), Writing Creative Nonfiction: The Literature of Reality (1996), and The Tales We Tell: Perspectives on the Short Story (1998). She is a Professor of Englis
h at the University of Northern Iowa where she was named the University's Distinguished Scholar in 1994 and its Outstanding Teacher in 1998. She is currently working on a book on Virginia Woolf’s diaries.
Dr. Lounsberry will be doing a slide show presentation during the Women’s Studies “No Limits Conference.” The title of the presentation is "Nancy Drew: Midwestern Heroine to the World” or "Nancy Drew: The Iowa Legacy." This event will be open to all students and should be interesting. Even if students have not read Nancy Drew mysteries, the heroine is a fine example of a young woman – creative, smart, independent – that breaks the bonds of traditional female roles.