A puppeteer, director and Spanish theater scholar, he received a PhD in Hispanic Literature from the University of Arizona in 2009 and has directed plays in Spanish by Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón de la Barca and María de Zayas. His 2005 production of El caballero de Olmedo, produced by Brigham Young University, opened the 2005 Chamizal Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, in El Paso, TX, and his world-first translation/adaptation of Tirso’s Antona García debuted there in 2012. He serves as a board member of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater (AHCT), and curates the organization’s extensive film archive of Golden Age stage performances. Since arriving at GVSU Professor Yancey has created a one-of-a-kind Spanish puppetry course that teaches students to write, produce and perform original puppet theater for local Spanish immersion elementary schools.