Brant Russell

Since arriving in Cincinnati in 2013, Brant Russell has directed Macbeth, You’re Welcome, the workshop and subsequent full production of Very Dumb Kids, Romeo and Juliet, Love and Information, Association of Controlled Dreamers, Our Town, and Cincinnati Dionysia at CCM. Other CCM projects include Boeing-Boeing (a co-production with The Carnegie) and The Hunchback of Seville (a co-production with Know Theatre).

He is the founding artistic director of the CCM Playwrights Workshop, and the drama editor for The Cincinnati Review. 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, the live/video hybrid Theatre: A Love Story, and the US premieres of In the Night Time (Before the Sun Rises) and Dickless at the Know, where also appeared in the musical Whisper House.  For Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, he directed a world premiere musical adaptation of As You Like It in April, 2023.

His short plays have been performed here by the Cincinnati One-Minute Play Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and Human Race Theatre.  His play Bankers was a semi-finalist for American Blues Theater's Blue Ink Playwriting award and received a full production at the Know in 2023. His site-specific interactive play Children of the Corn-Maze: In Search of the Greenville Ghost was produced by Cincinnati Playhouse in the park in October, 2022.  His play Well Well Well was workshoped at New York Stage & Film in July, 2024, and received an Honorable Mention from the Relentless Awards.

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.  In 2022, he directed the world premiere of Gracie Gardner's Malvolios at Drama Studio London.  In 2024, he led a week of workshops with Assistant Professor of Acting Samuel Stricklen at The Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre in Krakow, Poland.  He has worked with many companies in his home town of Chicago, including Theater 7, Strawdog, Next, Steep, Side Project, A Red Orchid, Collaboraction, Victory Gardens, Writers’ Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Steppenwolf.  He has taught at Kenyon College and Northwestern University, and led workshops and masterclasses in Europe and India.  Proud member, SDC, AAUP, and Lincoln Center Directors' Lab.  www.brantrussell.com 
 

BA (Political Science): Kenyon College Gambier, OH,

MFA (Stage Directing): Northwestern University Evanston, IL,

2013 -2019 Assistant Professor , University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music,

2019 -To Present Associate Professor, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music,

2012 -2013 Visiting Assistant Professor, Kenyon College,