Ian's profile
I am a professional Artistic Director with thirty years of experience in professional theater. I specialize in creating theatrical experiences in non-traditional performance settings and reaching under-served communities. My work, which strays from the mainstream, reaches audiences who have generally abandoned any connection to theater or the performing arts by creating new performance dynamics with some of the oldest plays in the canon.
My early career was as a professional actor for companies like Theater by the Grove, The Repertory Theater of America, North Carolina Theater for Young People, Seattle Theatre Project and others. I appeared in the 1989 Academy Award winning film The Johnstown Flood.
My early professional directing work transitioned the focus of my career to Artistic Directing. Since 1991,I have been employed as an Artistic Director for various theater companies across the country including (in order) The Seattle Performance Lab, Small Change Original Theatre, National Theatre for Children, Minnesota Shakespeare in the Park (Founding Artistic Director), The Repertory Theater of America, and The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (Founding Artistic Director). Over my career, I have directed over 100 professional productions including some of Shakespeare's greatest plays like King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Nights Dream to original works for children. I was the creator of the national touring live theater version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego for the National Theatre for Children and WGBH-TV Boston.
My work as a scriptwriter includes many works having been published for Pioneer Drama and an educational video series for Warren Miller Films: The Adventures of Zimmo. My original script for the video A Waste in Time was awarded a Telly Award for excellence in educational video.
In 1999, I moved to Maryland where I managed the Repertory Theater of America (a national touring theater company based in Baltimore, now defunct) and founded the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. As the Founding Artistic Director of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, I serve as leader and manager of all artistic aspects of Maryland's fastest growing arts organization. CSC is recognized as one of the leading emerging Shakespeare companies in America and the company been covered by CNN, Money Magazine, The Washington Post, UPI, the New York Times and American Theater Magazine.
The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company performs the works of Shakespeare and other classics in Howard County, Maryland and throughout the Baltimore region. A Greater Baltimore Theatre Award winning and Citypaper Best of Baltimore theater company, CSC is Maryland's premier professional classics stage company and serves over 11,000 patrons annually. In my capacity as Artistic Director, I have directed over fifteen productions with CSC including popular and critical favorites like King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and the original musical version of Lysistrata (for which I adapted and wrote music and lyrics). In addition, I created and manage a vibrant education program that makes contact with over 2,000 students per year with residencies, school matinees, guest teacher programs and free admission for kids.
CSC's work specializes in high energy performances of Shakespeare and other classics that reach communities that normally don't participate or attend works of classic theater or do not normally have access to it. Highlights of my tenure include the growth of the company from a 2002 annual budget of $8K to 2011's $550K annual budget. CSC's audience has grown from 100 at its first showcase performance in 2002 to over 11,000 in 2011. CSC was the only Maryland theater selected to participate in the International Shakespeare in Washington Festival hosted by the Kennedy Center and The Shakespeare Theatre. We performed Macbeth at a maximum security prison in Anne Arundel County (The Patuxent Institution) - the first performance of Shakespeare ever performed in a maximum security prison in the state of Maryland.
My directing work at CSC has largely focused on creating new dynamics between audience and art that abandons much of the traditional theater culture that is the standard for most popular theatrical performances, while at the same time, remaining appealing to audiences. Methods include converting the ruins of an antebellum girl's boarding school into a popular outdoor performance space with an interactive ambiance. My innovations in performances for students include open access to performers before, during and after performances and placing a portion of the audience on the stage with the performance along with a unique program that allows free admission to performances for students under the age of 19. My work for student and family audiences is greatly informed by my tenure at the National Theatre for Children at which my innovative work with performance styles altered and strengthened the impact of the work created by the country's largest children's theater.
In addition, along with the New York Classical Theatre's Stephen Burdman, I am part of a movement of "movable" theater. That is, site specific performances in which audiences follow the actors and action of a play in a large physical space or campus. CSC has been exploring this format with great excitement and enthusiasm from its community. My 2008 "movable" production of Macbeth was called, by Maryland Public radio's Morning Edition "the most exciting production of the Scottish play you're likely to see." My work in this area continues and expands.
I live with his eleven year old daughter in Columbia, Maryland.
My early career was as a professional actor for companies like Theater by the Grove, The Repertory Theater of America, North Carolina Theater for Young People, Seattle Theatre Project and others. I appeared in the 1989 Academy Award winning film The Johnstown Flood.
My early professional directing work transitioned the focus of my career to Artistic Directing. Since 1991,I have been employed as an Artistic Director for various theater companies across the country including (in order) The Seattle Performance Lab, Small Change Original Theatre, National Theatre for Children, Minnesota Shakespeare in the Park (Founding Artistic Director), The Repertory Theater of America, and The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (Founding Artistic Director). Over my career, I have directed over 100 professional productions including some of Shakespeare's greatest plays like King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Nights Dream to original works for children. I was the creator of the national touring live theater version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego for the National Theatre for Children and WGBH-TV Boston.
My work as a scriptwriter includes many works having been published for Pioneer Drama and an educational video series for Warren Miller Films: The Adventures of Zimmo. My original script for the video A Waste in Time was awarded a Telly Award for excellence in educational video.
In 1999, I moved to Maryland where I managed the Repertory Theater of America (a national touring theater company based in Baltimore, now defunct) and founded the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. As the Founding Artistic Director of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, I serve as leader and manager of all artistic aspects of Maryland's fastest growing arts organization. CSC is recognized as one of the leading emerging Shakespeare companies in America and the company been covered by CNN, Money Magazine, The Washington Post, UPI, the New York Times and American Theater Magazine.
The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company performs the works of Shakespeare and other classics in Howard County, Maryland and throughout the Baltimore region. A Greater Baltimore Theatre Award winning and Citypaper Best of Baltimore theater company, CSC is Maryland's premier professional classics stage company and serves over 11,000 patrons annually. In my capacity as Artistic Director, I have directed over fifteen productions with CSC including popular and critical favorites like King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and the original musical version of Lysistrata (for which I adapted and wrote music and lyrics). In addition, I created and manage a vibrant education program that makes contact with over 2,000 students per year with residencies, school matinees, guest teacher programs and free admission for kids.
CSC's work specializes in high energy performances of Shakespeare and other classics that reach communities that normally don't participate or attend works of classic theater or do not normally have access to it. Highlights of my tenure include the growth of the company from a 2002 annual budget of $8K to 2011's $550K annual budget. CSC's audience has grown from 100 at its first showcase performance in 2002 to over 11,000 in 2011. CSC was the only Maryland theater selected to participate in the International Shakespeare in Washington Festival hosted by the Kennedy Center and The Shakespeare Theatre. We performed Macbeth at a maximum security prison in Anne Arundel County (The Patuxent Institution) - the first performance of Shakespeare ever performed in a maximum security prison in the state of Maryland.
My directing work at CSC has largely focused on creating new dynamics between audience and art that abandons much of the traditional theater culture that is the standard for most popular theatrical performances, while at the same time, remaining appealing to audiences. Methods include converting the ruins of an antebellum girl's boarding school into a popular outdoor performance space with an interactive ambiance. My innovations in performances for students include open access to performers before, during and after performances and placing a portion of the audience on the stage with the performance along with a unique program that allows free admission to performances for students under the age of 19. My work for student and family audiences is greatly informed by my tenure at the National Theatre for Children at which my innovative work with performance styles altered and strengthened the impact of the work created by the country's largest children's theater.
In addition, along with the New York Classical Theatre's Stephen Burdman, I am part of a movement of "movable" theater. That is, site specific performances in which audiences follow the actors and action of a play in a large physical space or campus. CSC has been exploring this format with great excitement and enthusiasm from its community. My 2008 "movable" production of Macbeth was called, by Maryland Public radio's Morning Edition "the most exciting production of the Scottish play you're likely to see." My work in this area continues and expands.
I live with his eleven year old daughter in Columbia, Maryland.
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