Kirk Jackson
Kirk Jackson is an actor/director with four decades of experience on and off Broadway and regionally. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, he has assisted Ivo van Hove on multiple productions in New York City and, recently, began to direct operas.
Biography
Jackson has performed on and off Broadway and throughout the United States in nearly 200 productions, including the world premieres of Terrance McNally’s Love! Valour! Compassion! (Broadway), Doug Wright’s Quills (New York Theater Workshop) and Interrogating the Nude (Yale Rep.), David Lindsay-Abaire’s Wonder of the World (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington, DC), Samuel Beckett’s one-man Stirrings Still (Center Stage, Baltimore), and the United States premiere of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Three Birds Alighting on a Field (Manhattan Theater Club).
He directed the United States premiere of Howard Barker’s Uncle Vanya and has assisted Belgian director Ivo van Hove on groundbreaking productions at New York Theater Workshop: Scenes from a Marriage, The Little Foxes, The Misanthrope, Hedda Gabler, and More Stately Mansions. Jackson’s other directing credits include Rigoletto and Gianni Schicchi for Hubbard Hall Opera Theater; Legends!, The Internationalist, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Take Me Out (2005 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Production) at Studio Theatre, Washington, DC; The Busy World Is Hushed, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Nickel and Dimed, and Gray’s Anatomy at Actorstheatre, Phoenix, Arizona (multiple Zoni Awards and nominations); Strange Interlude at Washington Shakespeare Co. (Helen Hayes Award nominations); Take Me Out and ART at Capital Rep. in Albany, New York, and The English American (Best of Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe Festival).
For the MFA program at the Old Globe Theatre (University of San Diego) he has directed Tartuffe, The Importance of Being Earnest, Uncle Vanya, An Absolute Turkey, and Six Characters in Search of an Author. He recently played Sherlock Holmes at Dorset Theatre Festival. A founding member of the Obie Award-winning Cucaracha Theater, Jackson has taught and directed at Princeton, New York University, and CalArts. BA, Binghamton University (Don A. Watters Award for outstanding achievement); MFA, Yale School of Drama (Carol Dye Award for outstanding achievement as an actor). Jackson has taught at Bennington since 2001.