Barbara has been teaching acting at Ithaca College since 1985. At Ithaca she wrote and directed Socially Transmitted Dread and the interactive play, Date At Eight. Both plays toured to several colleges including Wells College, Binghamton University, Cornell University, and Dartmouth College. In 2000, under her direction, she initiated the yearly production of The Vagina Monologues. She also directed an alcohol awareness program for athletes, and a suicide prevention program for the counseling center.
In 2008 her screenplay, The Boulder, garnered her an individual Saltonstall Screenwriting Grant and she was one of the top three finalists in the Ashville Film Festival Screenwriting Contest.
Barbara was cofounder and director of Mischief Mime Theatre Co., a national touring troupe that existed from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. They performed off Broadway and at many theaters and colleges across the United States. She continues to perform original theater and has been a teaching artist in many primary and secondary schools throughout upstate New York.
Barbara graduated with a BA in Humanties with concentrations in Drama and Fine Arts from New College at Hofstra University. From Vermont College she received an MA in the Healing Aspects of Theatre. She studied acting and mime at the HB Studio in NYC, with Michael Henry in Rochester and with Tony Montanero of Celebration Mime in Maine.