Jason Southerland

Jason Southerland (Directing, Institute for Advanced Theatre Training Class of 97) became the fifth artistic director of Chicago’s Next Theatre Company (www.nexttheatre.org) in December 2008. He will make his Chicago directing debut in September 2009 with the regional premiere of boom by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. He produced ten mainstage seasons at Boston Theatre Works, where he was the Founding Artistic Director. He won the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Direction for Angels in America: Part I and II in January 2008. In addition, he directed the East Coast premiere of Rebecca Gilman’s The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, the local regional premiere of I Am My Own Wife with ART Company Member Thomas Derrah at Zero Arrow Theatre, as well as the New England premieres of Pulp, Homebody/Kabul, Not About Nightingales (Elliot Norton Award), The Laramie Project (Elliot Norton Award), and the world premiere of Low Flying Aircraft. His additional Boston area credits include Take Me Out, A Streetcar Named Desire and Buddy (Foothills Theatre); Proof, The Laramie Project and Midnight Sun (Gloucester Stage); Party (ICA); Guys on Ice (Stoneham Theatre); Anyone Can Whistle (Boston Conservatory) and Inside Andrew’s Head (BCA). He studied directing at the Institute, where his projects included Female Transport, Six Degrees of Separation and Hedda Gabler. Jason has worked at the Mark Taper Forum, the Old Globe Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, and the Women's Project and served as assistant to Julianne Boyd on A...My Name is Still Alice. He also worked with Jerry Zaks on the world premiere of Assassins and with Hal Price on the revival of Show Boat. Jason was a 1993 recipient of the Drama League Fellowship and was named by Boston magazine as one of “40 Bostonians to Watch.”