Beth Milles '88 believes that in theater, as in any professional life, each experience leads to the next.

The Cornell assistant professor of theater has built a professional and academic career drawing from commedia dell'arte, the improvisational theater form dating to 16th-century Italy.

"I first discovered clown-and-mask work in graduate school. I fell in love with the form -- it is the theater of possibility," she said. "I am convinced the artistic person we are to become is lodged inside of us early on; if we are lucky we find the opportunity to examine it."

Commedia was king in the production of Molière's "The Bourgeois Gentleman" that Milles directed at Cornell last fall. She invited students to ice skate, dance, hang from a trapeze and generally add to the spectacle as a succession of "experts" aiding Molière's social-climbing protagonist.

"It was an opportunity to use what we work on in class," Milles said. "It's very important for students who are artists to find a way to confidently express what they are trying to explore, because failure is part of learning."

Earlier this year she directed "Carnage: A Comedy" in Los Angeles, her fourth show for The Actors' Gang and its artistic director Tim Robbins.

"I really feel that we have to do what we're asking our students to do -- which is why I try to work outside the [theater, film and dance] department during our breaks," she said. "I love my professional career, but it is in no way more rewarding than my work here."

"Carnage," a satire of evangelism in America co-written by Robbins and Adam Simon, was first staged in 1987 and revived in February, with 11 actors playing 50 characters.

"Tim was investigating something ahead of its time," she said. "He is all heart; he has led the company for 25 years and is passionate about it. Everything they do is smart and funny and brave and audacious."

Milles considers the company her "artistic home"; its members include actors Jack Black and Dean Robinson, Milles' husband. "It's a special company with a political dynamic, doing commedia-based work," she said. "I go there as often as I can."

Milles also was a movement coach for young actor Marcus Carl Franklin on the film "I'm Not There," director Todd Haynes' multi-character refraction of the lives of Bob Dylan. Haynes discussed the film at Cornell Cinema March 29.

"A former student of mine, Rori Bergman ['02], who works in Laura Rosenthal's casting office, recommended me to Todd," she said.

Milles worked with Franklin in New York and in 2006 on the film set in Montreal, coaching him on improvisation and lazzi (rehearsed comic actions) for his character, Woody.

"I was trying to give Marcus, who was then 13, a grounding in his physicality -- how he puts on his hat, how he has his guitar slung over his shoulder, every little thing," she said. "Marcus is a phenomenal actor; he didn't need me. He's open and seems really willing to do anything. From the first shot, when he gets on the train, you can see what's going on with him."

Milles graduated from Cornell with a degree in history and from the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. She was a freelance director for several years before joining the Cornell faculty.

She joined The Actors' Gang to direct Molière's "The Imaginary Invalid" in 1996. The play ran for more than five months, won awards and was staged for National Public Radio. After that success, "I was able to travel and work for a long time," Milles said.

She worked with Wendy Wasserstein as an assistant director on "The Heidi Chronicles" off-Broadway; directed Julia Sweeney's Broadway hit "God Said, 'Ha!'"; did regional theater across America and television projects with Disney, and directed "Nero: Another Golden Rome" in San Francisco -- a show developed at Cornell (as "The Nero Project") with students and musician Duncan Sheik. Her numerous Cornell credits also include the opera "Carnival Mascarade" and work with the student theater troupe Ordinary People.

"What's exciting about theater is that nothing is impossible," she said. "It is about making things happen -- something I repeat to myself in moments of doom."