West Virginia University College of Creative Arts is pleased to welcome acclaimed stage director, producer, scenic designer and theater educator Jim Knipple as the new resident artist and visiting assistant professor of directing and playwriting for the School of Theatre & Dance.
Knipple is the founding artistic director of the Run of the Mill Theater Co. in Baltimore, Md., and producing director for Baltimore Shakespeare Theater. He is the co-creator of “The Variations Project,” as well as the co-founder and co-producer of World Premiere Weekend at University of California Irvine, a play festival premiering the works of notable playwrights such as Neil LaBute and Erik Ehn, where he directed the American premiere of Neil LaBute’s “The Furies.”
Since receiving his Master of Fine Arts in Directing from UC Irvine, Knipple has worked extensively as both a director and assistant director at prestigious theater companies across the country including CENTERSTAGE, Utah Shakespearean Festival, and South Coast Repertory. His productions have received many top honors including the Kennedy Center Certificate of Merit for Excellence in Direction for “Fertile Ground” and Baltimore’s Best Production of 2006 for “Variations on Fear.”
Knipple will direct “The Liar” by David Ives, adapted from the comedy by Pierre Corneille, opening in late November in the Gladys G. Davis Theatre at the WVU Creative Arts Center. He is also the new director of the Laboratory Theatre, a student-produced extension of the School of Theatre & Dance.
“I’m extremely honored and humbled to be joining this amazing theater community here at WVU,” Knipple said. “I have continually been impressed by this school and look forward to contributing to the development of future American theater artists. Also, to be given a script as fantastically fun as “The Liar” for my WVU debut is quite a treat.”
For more information on Resident Artist Jim Knipple and the comedy “The Liar,” please visit www.theatre.wvu.edu.
-WVU-
cl/09/04/13
CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, WVU College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu
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