Brant Russell (he/him) is associate professor in the acting program at the University of Cincinnati College–Conservatory of Music. He is also the founding artistic director of the CCM Playwrights Workshop and the drama editor for The Cincinnati Review.
Since arriving in Cincinnati in 2013, Brant has directed Macbeth, You’re Welcome, the workshop and subsequent full production of Very Dumb Kids, Romeo and Juliet, Love and Information, and Association of Controlled Dreamers at CCM. Other CCM projects include Boeing-Boeing (a coproduction with The Carnegie) and The Hunchback of Seville (a coproduction with Know Theatre). For CCM Acting, he teaches Artist in Society, Script Analysis, History of Directing, and a graduate aesthetics seminar for designers. He also produces the annual TRANSMIGRATION Festival of student-devised work.
He directed the world-premiere production of Darkest Night at the Gnarly Stump, the regional premiere of The Man-Beast, and the US premiere of In the Night Time (Before the Sun Rises) at the Know Theatre, where he also appeared in the musical Whisper House. His short plays have been performed here by the Cincinnati One-Minute Play Festival, and his play Bankers was workshopped at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival and was a semifinalist for American Blues Theater’s Blue Ink Playwriting award.
He frequently collaborates with Queens Theatre in New York, where he has produced Park Plays and The World’s Fair Play Festival (New York Times Critic’s Pick), and directed The Miracle Worker and Barefoot in the Park—all four with many CCM alums. In 2019, Russell was Professeur Inviteé at Universiteé Bordeaux Montaigne. He has worked with many companies in his hometown of Chicago, including Theater 7, Strawdog, Next, Steep, Side Project, A Red Orchid, Collaboraction, Victory Gardens, Writers’ Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and Steppenwolf. Proud member SDC, AAUP, and Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab. www.brantrussell.com
