MICHAEL ROHD
Michael Rohd is founding artistic director of SOJOURN THEATRE in Portland, OR, where his work as creator/director/performer includes The Justice Project (in a historic Federal Courthouse), The Visit, (in an old High School), the warehouse performance journey 7 Great Loves (five 2003 Drammy awards including Best Production and Best Director), Witness Our Schools (9 months of Oregon and national touring) and Passing Glances: mirrors and windows in Allen County, Ohio a documentary theatre piece about race and leadership supported by a 2001 Ford Foundation Animating Democracy grant. Sojourn is a 2005 recipient of Americans for the Arts’ Animating Democracy Exemplar Award. Rohd is a recipient of Theatre Communication Group’s 2001 New Generations Grant, and their 2002 Extended Collaboration Grant (as a playwright) with Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre. He is an associate artist with Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles and an artistic associate with Ping Chong & Co in New York City (where his work includes co-creating Truth & Beauty which was published in American Theatre Magazine, March 2001, and co-creating and performing in Blind Ness at La MaMa in NYC). A recent Peter Ivers Artist-in-Residence at Harvard University and a current guest faculty member at Northwestern University's Theatre Department in Evanston, Illinois, he is also founding artistic director of HOPE IS VITAL, an international theatre and community dialogue resource, and author of the book Theatre for Community, Conflict, and Dialogue (Heinemann, 1998). He has an MFA in Directing and Public Dialogue from Virginia Tech, where he was recently honored as 2005’s Outstanding Alumni for the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences.