The CalArts Center for New Performance welcomes back director Monty Cole as a resident artist to develop an original film project.
Monty Cole is a director based in Chicago and Los Angeles. Cole has workshopped and directed new plays and re-imaginings of classic text across the country. He has directed for Steppenwolf (The Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney), Center Theatre Group (Campaign by Laura Jacqmin and How to Raise a Freeman by Zakiyyah Alexander at the LA Writers Workshop Fest), The Goodman Theatre (Incendiary by Dave Harris and florissant & canfield by Kristiana Rae Colon at the New Stages Festival), Victory Gardens Theater (end of message by Laura Jacqmin and Suspension by Kristiana Rae Colon at the Ignition Festival of New Plays), Cape Cod Theatre Project and Alley Theatre All New Festival (end of message), American Theatre Company (The Project(s) and Black Like Me workshop), The House Theatre of Chicago (Borealis, Ogalala workshop, and Thatcher Woods workshop), Haven (Kiss by Guillermo Calderon), the Chicago Theater Marathon (That Unnamed Feeling by Alysia and Monty Cole), California Institute of the Arts, and others. Cole directed the Jeff Award winning production of The Hairy Ape for Oracle Productions.
He’s currently commissioned to adapt Black Like Me, the classic investigation of race by John Howard Griffin. Monty is also working with collaborator and choreographer Breon Arzell on revitalizing In Dahomey, the first Black written and performed Broadway musical.
Cole recently directed the west coast premiere of Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die, a workshop of his Goodman commission American Adolescence. Monty has a BFA in Theatre Studies from Emerson College and an MFA in Directing from the California Institute of the Arts.
Learn more about Cole’s work at monty-cole.com