Biography of Russell Vandenbroucke

Russell Vandenbroucke spent eleven seasons as artistic director of Chicago's Northlight Theatre where he directed such plays as the Philoctetes of Sophocles, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Anna Deavere Smith's Fires in the Mirror, and the world premieres of Arnold Wesker's Three Women Talking (also for radio) and Martha Boesing's My Other Heart, supported by the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays. Regional theatre productions include Proof and A Christmas Carol for Virginia State Company, The Blood Knot at Marin Theatre Company, and Snapshot for the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville. He began his career as Assistant Literary Manager of the Yale Repertory Theatre, later becoming Literary Manager of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and Producer of its literary cabaret. From there he became Associate Producer of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. As a playwright, he is the author of Feiffer's America and Eleanor: In Her Own Words, adapted from the writings of Eleanor Roosevelt, which won a Los Angeles Emmy and was broadcast on the "American Playhouse" series. His play Atomic Bombers commemorated the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima on radio and opened Northlight's first permanent theatre. Holiday Memories, his stage version of two Truman Capote stories, has been produced throughout the country. He has also adapted Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People. His books include Truths the Hand Can Touch: The Theatre of Athol Fugard, Contemporary Australian Plays (editor), and The Theatre Quotation Book: A Treasury of Insights and Insults. He holds degrees from the University of Illinois, Warwick University in Coventry, England, and the Yale School of Drama. He traveled to Finland, Rumania, and (then) East Germany for the State Department in 1986, was a Fulbright Scholar in Australia in 1996, and covered Italy's Spoleto Festival for American Theatre magazine in 2000 and the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa, in 2003. Actors' Equity Association commended his leadership of Northlight Theatre "For Its Innovative Casting Practices and for Its Hiring of Women and People of Color." In 2001 he joined the University of Louisville as Professor and Chair of the Theatre Arts Department in 2001. There he wrote and directed a new version in verse of The Trojan Women by Euripides. With a company of actors he also created and directed School Play, inspired by the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. After touring Louisville middle and high schools, it was performed in Moscow and Perm in Russia. His lifelong commitment to peace and justice is reflected in plays he has written, directed, and produced. In 2007 he traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, to participate in the program of the Rotary Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Chulalongkorn University.