Chuck Harper
Professor, Performance - Department Chair
M.F.A. University of Washington, 1997
charper@siue.edu
618.650.5012
Chuck is a Professor of Acting, Directing and Experimental Performance and is Chair of the Department of Theater and Dance. He is also Artistic Director of SIUE Xfest: a festival of alternative theater and dance. He holds an MFA in Directing from the University of Washington School of Drama and a BA from Western Washington University. Additional training includes Suzuki Training with the SITI Company and with Pacific Performance Projects, and Viewpoints Training with Anne Bogart and Tina Landau.
Chuck’s theatrical career began in Chicago where he was an Associate Artist with Strawdog Theatre Company. His directing credits with Strawdog include the Midwest premieres of Alexander Ostrovsky’s “A Family Affair,” Marlane Meyer’s “Etta Jenks,” Howard Korder’s “Search and Destroy,” and Robert Anton Wilson’s punk-rock opera “Wilhelm Reich in Hell.” He also worked with Chicago Shakespeare, Organic Theatre, and SST Communications. Subsequent professional directing work has been seen in Germany, the Czech Republic, France, and in the U.S. in NYC, Los Angeles, Saint Louis and Seattle. His European Premiere production of Doug Wright’s “Quills” was named “Theatre Event of the Year” by the Prague Post and subsequently toured to Berlin. In 2000 he moved to Poitiers, France to serve as Associate Director of the Ardeo Theatre Project, a resident theatre company and study-abroad program for American university students. In France he directed and performed in the European Premiere of Chuck Mee's “Big Love” which debuted at the Benedictine Cloister Chapel in St. Julien l'Ars.
His work in St. Louis includes numerous regional premieres with HotCity Theater including “Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom,” “Slasher,” and “Adult Entertainment.” His original dance/theater creations include “The Probe: An Investigation into the Meteoric Rise and Spectacular Fall of Orson Welles in Hollywood” which played in St. Louis and at the Prague International Fringe Festival, and “Whammy! The Seven Secrets to a Sane Self” which played in St. Louis, Columbus, Ohio, and in New York at Fringe Festival NYC. His current passion is the newly created multi-disciplinary performance ensemble YoungLiars, where he serves as Co-Producing Director. His projects with YoungLiars include “The Dispute: A Spectacle for Lovers and Fighters,” “Burrow” (based on the unfinished novella by Franz Kafka), “Fifty Shades of Phaedra,” and “Titus Androgynous: A Comic Spectacle.”
