| Jesse Berger - Artistic
Director As founding artistic director of Red Bull Theater in New York, Jesse Berger has adapted and directed productions of Pericles, The Revenger’s Tragedy, and Edward the Second. All three productions received critically-acclaimed extended Off Broadway runs, and Jesse’s adaptation of The Revenger’s Tragedy is now published by Dramatists Play Service. Red Bull Theater continues to produce an eclectic variety of classical and contemporary work under Jesse’s leadership, including the OBIE Award-Winning “Revelation Reading” Series. Jesse has also directed in New York and across the country at such theaters as The Old Globe (Othello), Pittsburgh Public Theatre (The Laramie Project, I Am My Own Wife, Life X 3, A Number), New York Theater Workshop, SoHo Rep, Theaterworks, the Pearl, Urban Stages, Dorset Theatre, Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab, Theatre J, Arizona Shakespeare (All’s Well That Ends Well with Michael Learned), the Asolo Theatre Company, Washington Shakespeare Company (Marat/Sade), among others. Jesse has also helped develop new plays at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the Playwright’s Center. Jesse received a Helen Hayes Award for his direction of Marat/Sade. Jesse was associate director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC for three seasons, working with Michael Kahn, JoAnne Akalaitis, Patrick Stewart, Kelly McGillis, Elizabeth Ashley and others on 20 productions, as well as staging King Lear and The Merry Wives of Windsor for the Shakespeare Theatre Company at the 4,000-seat outdoor Carter Barron Amphitheater. Jesse also assistant directed the revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man on Broadway, and was the 1999 US Directing Fellow at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, where he assisted Tim Carroll and Mark Rylance. Jesse began his professional career as an apprentice to Garland Wright at The Guthrie Theater, and was his assistant director on four productions, including Old Times, Babes in Arms and King Lear. Jesse has taught and directed at Juilliard School of Drama, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, the Shakespeare Theatre Academy for Classical Acting, the Guthrie Theater/University of Minnesota, Bard College, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Texas-Austin, Michael Howard Studios, and the American Academy of Dramatic Art. Jesse trained at Central College in London and Southern Utah University.
One of six directors chosen for the 2004-2006 NEA/TCG Directors Program,
Jesse is also a member of Lincoln Center Theatre Director’s Lab,
SSDC, and New York Theatre Workshop’s Usual Suspects. |