Tracy Bersley

---

Tracy Bersley, specializing in movement based theatre, has adapted, directed and choreographed many stories including: Three Incestuous Sisters (CSV); Alice in Wonderland (Dorset Theater Festival); The Epic of Sunjata (Loft Theatre); The House on Mango Street (Syracuse Stage); Tibet: Through the Red Box (at HERE in conjunction with the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab); lamb of gods, (NYC Fringe Festival); The Awful Rowing Toward God (Ontological Theatre’s Blueprint Series); The Anatomy of Touch (Ontological); Rappaccini’s Daughter (Chashama NYC/Jim Henson Foundation’s Festival); Beyond Static and J’tombe (The Studio New York).

Other plays Tracy has directed include: 12^th Night (Sun Valley Shakespeare); Tempest (Hamptons Shakespeare Festival Tour); This Is Not a Pipe Dream (The Old Vineyard Theatre), a reverse gender production of Macbeth (Syracuse Stage); The Bacchae (Loft Theatre); The Winter’s Tale, A Streetcar Named Desire, House of Blue Leaves, Pippin, Hedda Gabler and Red Noses (McCarter Theatre/Princeton University); The Green Bird, Looking for Tibet, and Measure for Measure at Purchase Repertory (SUNY); Hello Again (NYU: Tisch/CAP 21); Blood Wedding and Hair (NYU: Steinhardt); and Charles Mee’s Trojan Women: A Love Story (Michael Howard Conservatory).

Tracy has also choreographed On the Levee (Lincoln Center, LCT3); Takarazuka (HERE/Clubbed Thumb); St. Joan of the Stockyards (PS 122); Scarlet Letter (Intiman, Seattle); A Year with Frog & Toad (Dorset Theatre Festival); Oliver (Experimental Theatre Wing, NYU); Monstrosity (13P); Quixote (Broad St. Theatre, Philadelphia) with director Lear deBessonet; Paris Commune (BAM/Public Theatre/Arts Emerson) and Great Immensity (The Pubic/Kansas City Rep) with the Civilians; Pericles, Revenger’s Tragedy, Women Beware Women and Duchess of Malfi, Witch of Edmunton (Lortel Nomination for Outstanding Choreography) and Volpone with director Jesse Berger (Red Bull Theatre); Love Child (New World Stages/Primary Stages) with director Carl Foresman; Belles Stratagem (Prospect Theatre Co.); Big Love (McCarter Theatre/Princeton); Perfect Wedding and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (NYU: Tisch, Grad Acting), Jane Eyre and The Tempest (The Acting Company); Punk Play (Clubbed Thumb, Ohio Theatre) with director Davis McCallum; The Giver with director Pam Berlin (NAMT); Romeo & Juliet with director Will Frears (Williamstown); Las Meninas with director DanielaVaron (Columbia/Barnard); Carousel with director Rick Joyce (Yale); 12th Night (directed by Jesse Berger) and Winter's Tale (directed by Harris Yulin) at Juilliard.

Tracy has choreographed several new musicals for Theatreworks USA, which have toured across the country, many with off-broadway runs at the Lortel Theater, including Max and Ruby and The Civil War for which she was a Callaway Award Finalist for Choreography. Tracy was also the resident choreographer for the College Light Opera Company, choreographing over 30 musicals during her tenure there.

Her direction and choreography for operas include Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte (American Singers Opera Project) and The Long Christmas Dinner, by Thorton Wilder/Paul Hindemith (Lincoln Center Director’s Lab/Juilliard Opera).

Tracy completed a directing residency for the 1999-2000 season at McCarter Theatre collaborating with such artists as Sam Shepard, David Mamet and Emily Mann, where she later ran the conservatory theatre program through which she directed As You Like It, The Tempest and her adaptation of The Lord of the Flies. She also served as movement consultant for two McCarter shows that went to Broadway: Anna in the Tropics (Royal Theatre) & Albee’s All Over (Round About Theatre). She was the Associate Director for Speaking in Tongues (Round About Theatre). She teaches acting, movement and directing/devising work at conservatories and studios in and out of New York City and is currently on faculty at Princeton University and CAP 21 Musical Theatre Conservatory. Her biography on Maria Irene Fornes is published in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. V, Twentieth Century American Dramatists. She received her MFA in directing from Syracuse University, focusing on international and cultural influences on an interdisciplinary theatre. She is also a Drama League Fellow and member of SDC.