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As a theatrician, my greatest interest is in creating ensembles. This passion developed as an adolescent when I created a troupe called Infinite Dreams. I directed eight plays for the group, including four of my own (Dance of Death/Song of Life, Subway, Unstable Octet, and Chasm).
I studied acting at Southern Oregon University, where I earned a BFA in Performance in 2005. In addition to acting, I studied playwriting under Dennis Smith, and directing under Dale Luciano and Jim Edmondson. While I learned much from these two in the classroom, I also took advantage of surreptitious master classes from them while acting in Dale’s production of Comic Potential and Jim’s production of Of Mice and Men. My style of directing is patterned heavily on these two men, as well as on the writing of William Ball.
Having completed my thesis six months shy of graduation, I set about writing and directing the play Ladder to the Attic as a swan song. The actors in that play formed the core of an ensemble I have worked with on five subsequent projects.
After college I spent three years in New York where I worked on a variety of projects in small theaters as a lighting designer, actor, and director. I also developed a program for United Rhythms and Visions called Mentoring through Puppetry, in which middle schoolers were taught the core principles of playwriting, acting, and storytelling over a one week puppet workshop.
In 2007, several of my college classmates started a theater group in Portland, OR, and asked if I had a play they could produce in their initial season. I offered them Roger and the Cave Monster, which they produced as Portland Ensemble Theatre Company in December of 2007.
I returned to the West Coast myself in 2008, largely thanks to being hired by a former NFL coach to write a screenplay about a record setting trio of bass anglers. While the film is still in development purgatory, the screenwriting commission helped fund my return home to Oregon.
Later in 2008, I approached my friends at Portland Ensemble Theatre about directing my play Pylon for their second show. They agreed, and the production was a great success with both audiences and critics.
At the end of 2008 I moved to Los Angeles, where I studied Playwriting at UCLA, earning an MFA in 2010, culminating with a workshop of my play Babel Belly at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, which won the Tim Robbins Playwriting Award earlier that same year.
Recently, I had the privilege of returning to Oregon to work on an adapted commission of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass for Southern Oregon University, and directed Romeo and Juliet for a co-production between The SCV Space in Santa Clarita and The Attic Theatre in Culver City.
I am currently directing the Winter Season at the Attic Theatre, with my adaptation of Alice Through the Looking Glass playing in December, and Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing playing in January and February. I am also in pre-production of Jane Miller’s fantastic new play Feedback, which I will direct at The Lyric Theatre in 2012.
I can be contacted at info@craigjessen.com.
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