Brandon Bruce is an award-winning director, actor, playwright, educator, sound designer, and fight choreographer residing in St. George, Utah (where he serves as Assistant Professor of Directing, Playwriting & Theatre History for Utah Tech University). Bruce’s work is greatly influenced by his passions for provocative performance, new works, theatre for young audiences, music, and history. As the Executive Artistic Director of the Birmingham Children’s Theatre, he directed a world premiere adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, The Three Musketeers, James & the Giant Peach, and Einstein is a Dummy. As the Senior Manager of Performance Interpretation for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, he directed The Revolutionary City, The Beloved Women of Chiota, the ballad opera Thomas & Sally, the pantomime Harlequin’s Holiday, and his own adaptation of The Servant of Two Masters. From 2004 to 2007, he served as Artistic Director of Chicago’s BackStage Theatre Company where he directed The Ruling Class, The Skin of Our Teeth, Terra Nova, and the world premiere staging of Denise Druczewski’s Inferno.
Other directing credits include Macbeth No. 9 (Tumbleweed Theatre), Songs for a New World (Birmingham Festival Theatre), The Little Foxes at Shattered Globe (nominated for three Joseph Jefferson Awards, including Best Production), Slawomir Mrozek’s Tango at the Chopin Theatre (Best Director from Chicago’s Orgie Awards), his own adaptation of The Duchess of Malfi (Strawdog Theatre), Catch-22 (Signal Ensemble). In 2007, Time Out Chicago Magazine listed him as the “Top 20 Chicagoans to Watch.”
A member of Actors’ Equity, Bruce has performed throughout the country, working with such theatres as Quill Theatre, Park Square Theatre, Minnesota Jewish Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Signal Ensemble, Porthouse Theatre, the Yale Summer Cabaret, Iowa Summer Rep, and numerous companies in the Twin Cities and Chicago theatre scenes. Prominent roles include Sancho in Man of La Mancha, Graziano in The Merchant of Venice, Oronte in The School for Lies, Dwight in Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, and the title roles in Hamlet and Macbeth.