Sheryl Stoodleyrwdoty@rcn.com
Northampton
Director
Sheryl Stoodley is Co-founder and Artistic Director of Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble, Northampton,MA.
(A member of the Network for Ensemble Theaters, USA.) Since1992 Ms. Stoodley has performed, taught and directed with regional and academic theatres throughout New England for the past 30 years. She leads the ensemble physical training focused in theatre as an art form, and has directed over 20 productions with Serious Play! including the premiere productions of Alice Tuan’s "Coastline" and Lenelle Moise's "Matermorphosis". Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble is committed to total physical expressiveness on stage.Other productions include:"What’s Left is Not Right: Marat/Sade’" with new music by Elizabeth Swados; "Becoming Antigone,"developed in collaboration with the spoken word ensemble Universes; and, "Hamlet– Asalto a la Inocencia," a reinterpretation with new text by Migdalia Cruz. "Coastline" toured to New York City and to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland for a month-long run. "Marat/Sade" toured to New York City and London. "Hamlet" toured to the 5th International Women Playwrights' Festival in Athens, Greece, where Stoodley taught ensemble acting and the physical theatre-making process with members of the Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble. Serious Play! has received funding from the NEA, the Ford Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council as well as other support and is a member of (NET) the Network of Ensemble Theatres, USA.
Ms. Stoodley holds an M.A. in the History of Theatre and Dramatic Literature from Smith College, and is a faculty member in the Theatre Dept. at Holyoke Community College. She has studied with Anne Bogart and Will Bond and the SITI Company; Eric Hill at the Suzuki Theatre Training Workshop, StageWest; Kristin Linklater and the Company of Women, and Jerzy Grotowski and the Polish Theatre Lab and at StageOne Theatre Lab inBoaton. Sheryl received the Jane Ahfeld Award for Dynamic Impact in the Arts from the Northampton Arts Council in 1999. She has directed all four of the presentations of "Celebrate the Children of Resistance" for the Rosenberg Fund for Children in Northampton, Berkeley, NYC and most recently at the John Hancock Center, Boston with Eve Ensler and David Strathairn.
Stoodley has performed and directed with Playwrights Horizons NYC, StageWest, Boston's Women in Theatre Festival, City Center NY, Smith College, UMass and Historic Deerfield. She was a faculty member of The Drama Studio in Springfield for nine years and Theatre Artist-In-Residence with the YouthReach Project of StageWest in Springfield from 1995 to '97. For five years she directed the TEAM Acting Program for young adults through the Family Planning Council of Western Massachusetts. In 1986 while studying at Smith, she directed a program of theatre workshops with incarcerated women, The "In Her Own Name" project, published two books of the inmates' writings, and developed and produced an original play based on their writings, Ain't No Man Dragged That Moon Down Yet. She has served as a guest lecturer and taught workshops at Springfield College, Westfield State College and UMass. She was formerly a member of the artist roster of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, providing teacher training and residencies in Massachusetts high schools. In 2008-09, through the Mass Cultural Council Serious Play! will conduct residencies in Commerce High School Springfield, Greenfield High School and Northampton High School. Fall training with the Intern Program and Core Ensemble will culminated with an Intern Production in Spring 2009.The premiere production of a new script "Milosevic at the Hague," written by UMass professor Milan Dragicevich and directed by Stoodley and produced by Serious Play! will open in Northampton in February 2009 at the new APE Artspace-WINDOW in downtown Northampton.
