Gundersheim serves as the theatre education coordinator and also teaches acting and directing and directs productions at Winthrop. Before coming to the university, Gundersheim taught theatre at Pentucket Regional High School in West Newbury, Mass., where he directed and choreographed more than 25 productions. He also worked as a freelance director and choreographer and co-founded and served as the co-artistic director of SPiNN, a jazz dance company in Methuen, Mass., where he choreographed and performed.
He has performed in plays, musicals, television, and film in California, Georgia, Arizona, Chicago, West Virginia, and Massachusetts, as well as on cruise ships. Gundersheim, a trained dancer, began his early dance training in Amherst, Mass., at The Amherst Ballet Centre, where he studied RAD and cecchetti technique as well as character, modern dance, and jazz. He performed principal roles in Les Sylphides as well as pas de deux from Bluebird and Don Quixote. He also performed as a member of the Amherst Ballet Theatre Company, traveling to Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia where he danced lead roles in modern and jazz pieces. He attended the NARB Craft of Choreography Conference and trained under Rochelle Zide-Booth. Gundersheim had the opportunity to work with choreographers Bruce Stegman, Jimmy Locust, Robin Karson, Kathi Jo Hubner, and Gary Schaeffer. He also spent a summer in Beckley, W.Va., studying under Jerry Rose.
While enrolled at Northwestern, Gundersheim worked and trained with Gus Giordano. While in Los Angeles, he studied jazz with Joe Tremaine and had the opportunity to work with choreographer Twyla Tharp.
At Winthrop, Gundersheim enjoys working with theatre education majors as they study to become theatre teachers, and he has presented workshops for the Palmetto Dramatic Association, Charlotte Mecklenburg School District, and the Old English Consortium. Gundersheim also serves as an adjudicator for SCTA and PDA’s Secondary School Play Festivals, and he presents workshops regularly at SCTA, AATE, and SETC conferences.
Recently, Gundersheim choreographed and directed Seussical, The Wiz, and The Trial of the Big Bad Wolf at the JCC of Charlotte. During his time at Winthrop, he has directed Antigone, To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, Anything Goes, and Godspell.