Artistic Director
Eric Rosen
Artistic Director
Eric Rosen, nationally recognized playwright, director and producer, is the fourth artistic director in the 45-year history of Kansas City Repertory Theatre. He is also co-founder and former artistic director of Chicago’s acclaimed About Face Theatre, where he developed, wrote, produced and/or directed nearly 30 world premieres in his thirteen seasons there.
Rep credits include direction of Metamorphoses and The Trip to Bountiful prior to his appointment, and direction of Clay; Winesburg, Ohio, for which he also wrote book and lyrics; the world premiere of A Christmas Story, The Musical!, which he will direct for 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle for the 2010 holiday season; and the world premiere of Venice, a new musical he co-wrote with Matt Sax, his creative partner on Clay, which he will also direct at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles in the fall of 2010.
Rosen’s original plays and musicals include Winesburg (Chicago’s Jefferson Award for best new work, and five Barrymore Awards including best musical), Dream Boy (Jeff Award for best direction and production) and Wedding Play (Jeff nomination for best new work), Dancer from the Dance, Whitman and Undone.
His production of Clay was seen at Kansas City Rep, About Face and Lookingglass Theatres in Chicago, Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, and Lincoln Center Theatre/LCT3 in New York.
Other directing credits include the world premieres of M. Proust by Mary Zimmerman (Jeff nomination for best new play) and Theater District (Jeff Award for best new play), and the Chicago premiere of Take Me Out, all in About Face/Steppenwolf co-productions. Regional credits include work at Steppenwolf, the Goodman, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Hartford Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, St. Louis Rep, 7 Stages in Atlanta, and workshops at Playwrights Horizons and Center Theatre Group.
As dramaturg and producer, Rosen collaborated on Doug Wright’s play I am My Own Wife, winner of the Tony Award for best play and the Pulitzer Prize; produced the famed site-specific performance Eleven Rooms of Proust created by Mary Zimmerman; and was dramaturg for Frank Galati and Stephen Flaherty’s Loving Repeating at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Moisés Kaufman’s One Arm at Steppenwolf Theatre, all in About Face Theatre partnerships; and Kaufmans’s 33 Variations at Sundance Theatre Lab, where he also recently directed Carlos Murillo’s Diagram of a Paper Airplane in 2009 .
Rosen earned his Ph.D. in performance studies from Northwestern University, and is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including a Human Rights Campaign Community Leadership Award and a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)/Theatre Communication Group (TCG) Career Development Fellowship for Directors. He has twice served as a theatre panel member for the NEA and has participated in the TCG/Pew Charitable Trusts’ National Theatre Artists Residency Program. Rosen has taught at Northwestern University, University of Chicago, Brooklyn College, and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, his alma mater.
