MUNCIE, Ind. -- Ball State University distinguished theater professor, director and actress Judy Yordon has received the prestigious Leslie Irene Coger Award for Distinguished Performance.

The national award honors individuals with a lifelong record of performance, including teaching, research, directing and live performances. Recipients are selected by performance studies faculty as part of the National Communication Association.

Leslie Irene Coger has been a major force in interpretation and performance studies for more than 50 years. She was a professor at Southwest Missouri State University until her retirement.

Performance studies, formerly known as oral interpretation, explores literature through performance.

Yordon is Ball State's George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Performance Studies and a member of the Ball State Department of Theatre and Dance faculty. She created and teaches the university's performance studies minor, including courses in the performance of poetry, prose fiction and Shakespeare.

Her textbook "Roles in Interpretation" remains a best seller for oral interpretation and performance studies. She also recently published "Experimental Theatre: Creating and Staging Texts" and is completing "Shakespeare in the Classroom: A Resource Guide."

Yordon performs at interpretation and performance festivals nationwide and has presented a one-woman show on the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks. Her stage appearances have also included leading roles in "Mornings at Seven," "Arsenic and Old Lace," "Agnes of God" and "The Cherry Orchard."

Her directing credits range from "Ghetto" and "An Inspector Calls" to "Steel Magnolias" and "A Chorus Line." She will direct Ball State's mainstage production of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" in February.

Yordon has presented master classes at area high schools on her adaptations of "Jane Eyre," "The Scarlet Letter" and "The Great Gatsby." She has also taught at Ball State's London Centre and Japan's Kansai University.

Yordon joined the Ball State faculty in 1976 and has received Ball State's College of Fine Arts Dean's Teaching Award and Outstanding Creative Endeavor Award. She won a Meritorious Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival in 1992 for Ball State's production of "Ghetto."

She is a member of the National Communication Association, Indiana Speech Association, Indiana Theatre Association and Phi Kappa Phi, and has chaired the Indiana Oral Interpretation Guild and the Central States Communication Association's Interpretation and Theatre Division.

(NOTE TO EDITORS: Judy Yordon can be reached at 765-285-3521 or e-mail: jyordon@bsu.edu)