PJ Paparelli

PJ Paparelli is in his third season as Artistic Director of Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska where he has directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Voyage, columbinus, Twelfth Night, Hair, Hamlet, The Who’s Tommy, and Equus. He is the founder and artistic director of the United States Theatre Project, where he conceived, co-wrote, and directed columbinus, which premiered at Round House Theatre (in Silver, Spring, MD) and Perseverance Theatre, and ran Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop last May. columbinus was nominated for five 2006 Helen Hayes Awards, including Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Direction, and Outstanding Production, and will be published by Dramatic Publishing in the fall of 2006. From 1998-2004, he served as the Associate Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC, where his directing credits include Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Bard on Broadway (with Karen Ziemba), Love Letters (with Dixie Carter and Hal Holbrook), All’s Well That Ends Well (Classical Acting Conservatory), Hamlet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Merchant of Venice at the Shakespeare Free For All, and many plays in the ReDiscovery Series including the world premiere of three of Tennessee Williams’ recently discovered one acts. He was associate director on The Oedipus Plays starring Avery Brooks at the Athens Festival in Greece, was the assistant director on King Lear, Richard II, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Coriolanus, King John, A Woman of No Importance, Twelfth Night, Trojan Women, Timon of Athens, and The Duchess of Malfi. PJ has directed and/or taught Shakespeare at the Julliard School (Richard III), North Carolina School of the Arts (Split), University of Alaska-Southeast, UNC at Chapel Hill, Catholic University (Twelfth Night), University of Pennsylvania (Once on this Island), Johns Hopkins (Godspell), and many master class and education programs at the Shakespeare Theatre. He holds a BFA in directing fro Carnegie Mellon and graduate studies in acting at the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia. He is currently on the faculty of the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College.