THEATRE EDUCATOR

George Kendall is a theatre educator, director, actor, and musician with nearly 20 years of teaching experience at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school levels.   George also founded and operated a summer theatre arts school and worked for a theatre company as director/actor/touring manager performing for secondary schools and under served youth groups (e.g., Boys/Girls Club, YMCA) as a community engagement initiative.  Prior to his teaching career, George worked in university administration, arts management at a LORT theatre, and high tech consulting for almost twenty years.  George holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, with concentrations in Theatre and English Literature, a Master’s degree from the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham (England), and an MFA degree in Shakespeare and Performance from Mary Baldwin University and the American Shakespeare Center.  He is currently chair of the Drama Department at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.

CURRICULUM DEVELOPER

George has developed state and national standards-based theatrical curriculum for studio and academic courses in general theatre, performance training, and technical theatre.  He has also developed courses for English literature and public speaking. George has consulted for the Massachusetts Department of Education, advising on theatre training for secondary schools and university programs.

ACTOR

An accomplished stage actor in both plays and musical theatre, George has portrayed roles in plays including Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, Neil Simon’s Jake’s Women, Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced, and in multiple Shakespeare plays.  His most recent roles include George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Prof. Van Helsing in Dracula-The Bloody Truth, and Ed (father) in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

STAGE and ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

George has directed over 50 plays and musicals in multiple performance venues – proscenium, thrust, black box, outdoor platform, and “found space.” He has directed twice at the International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland and at the American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars stage in Staunton, Virginia.  Directing credits include: Musicals — Miss Saigon, Evita, Phantom of the Opera, Crazy for You, Drowsy Chaperone, Little Shop of Horrors;  Plays — The Birthday Party (Pinter), The Crucible (Miller), Life of Galileo (Brecht), The Love Doctor (Molière); and 1/3 of the Shakespeare canon, including Macbeth, Richard III, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.   He is currently writing two plays and looking forward to post-pandemic acting.

MUSICIAN and MUSICAL DIRECTOR

A former music major at the University of Michigan, George plays trumpet, flügelhorn, Renaissance instruments, and percussion professionally, recently for the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA, and various gigs in Austin, Texas. He also composes music, directs pit orchestras for musical theatre, and is currently playing trumpet in the horn section of a 10-piece Vegas-style Elvis tribute band.

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

George has been extensively involved with set design, stage carpentry, lighting design, audio production, and technical direction. He has built sets and properties for dozens of major shows  — among his favorites are a 420 pound collapsing chandelier built and flown for Phantom of the Opera,  a two-level stage filling Casa Rosada for Evita, and a platform stage, complete with trap doors, for outdoor performance of Shakespeare plays.