Curt L. Tofteland

Member of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA).

Curt has been the Producing Artistic Director at Kentucky Shakespeare Festival since 1989 and brings twenty-six years of professional theatre experience to his roles of Artistic Director; theatrical director; Equity Actor; playwright; academic educator; conference panelist and presenter; workshop facilitator; professional development trainer; and drama artist-in-residence. As a director and an Equity actor, Curt has more than 100 professional productions and roles to his credit. As a playwright, he has had eight plays for young audiences professionally produced. In 1986, he was awarded the Al Smith Fellowship in playwriting from the Kentucky Arts Council. Curt has also taught and facilitated workshops at over a dozen theatres and universities across the country. He adapted and directed a one man show, Shakespeare’s Clownes: A Foole’s Guide to Shakespeare; since 1992, he has given over 400 performances throughout Kentucky and across the United States, as well as internationally at the Shakespeare Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia and in Bucharest and Brasov, Romania. Curt is the founder and director of Shakespeare Behind Bars, the only North American Shakespeare company contained within the walls of a medium security adult male prison. Each year, inmates at the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in LaGrange, Kentucky produce a full Shakespearean play. This project has been chronicled in a 2005 documentary film called Shakespeare Behind Bars, directed by Hank Rogerson; it has appeared at Sundance and other film festivals to great acclaim.