Shakespeare Lightning Round: Brian B. Crowe

 

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Brian B. Crowe is currently the Director of Education and a Resident Director at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (STNJ), where he is in his 26th season. In May, the company announced that he would succeed Bonnie J. Monte as its Artistic Director in 2024. During his tenure with the company, he has directed 27 plays in Shakespeare’s canon (in over 60 productions) as well as numerous other plays, including his original works based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe (Nevermore: The Final Nightmares of Edgar Allan Poe) and Lewis Carroll (Wonderland…and What Was Found There). NJArts named his productions of William Shakespeare’s Long Lost Play (abridged) and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol on their “Top 12 Plays in NJ for 2019.” The Star-Ledger called Mr. Crowe “one of the state’s most ingenious directors” (for Love’s Labour’s Lost) and has twice named him Best Director of a Drama (for Julius Caesar and for Wonderland). He has directed tours for the company’s Shakespeare LIVE! Education Touring Company every year since its inception in 1997.

As a director, he has also worked with The Human Race Theatre Company, where he was a resident company member; The Dayton Playhouse; Twelve Miles West Theatre Co; Rutgers University: Mason Gross School for the Arts; and others. Though his work has primarily focused on Shakespeare, he has also worked on a variety of other classic and contemporary texts, from Moliere to Frayn.

Mr. Crowe was instrumental in the creation and development of STNJ’s Shakespeare LIVE! educational touring company, which has brought engaging workshops and productions of Shakespeare to over 700,000 young people across the region since its inception in 1997. He teaches classes for the Theatre ranging from in-school Shakespeare residencies with over a hundred fourth-graders to audition workshops with college students across the Midwest and Northeast to the Shakespeare Book Club with local adult patrons.  An Ohio-transplant and a proud graduate of Wright State University, he is an alumnus of STNJ’s Summer Professional Training Program, which he now oversees each year, providing intense and challenging hands-on training for early career theatre artists from across the country and beyond. He conducts Shakespeare workshops at universities across the country, and has been an adjunct instructor at Drew University.

Mr. Crowe holds BFAs in Directing and Acting from Wright State University, and was a Fellow at the 2000 International Salzburg Shakespeare Seminar. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Shakespeare Theatre Association.