Amy Woodruff

www.theatrelouisiane.com/amy.html

Training: Intensive courses with Dah Teatar, Odin Teatret, Shakespeare & Company, and Vortex Rep Theatre · Hometown: Acadiana · College: McNeese University - BA in Theatre (Performance)

Amy Woodruff is a Louisiana theatre artist specializing in actor-created interdisciplinary performance. She has become known for provocative, critically-acclaimed projects that fuse traditional realistic theatre, postmodernist performance, and visual design (scenography, costume arts, audio/visual projection, lighting effects) into fully integrated multi-layered onstage works. Her streamlined, explorational creation process includes the engagement of participating artists' ideas, and highly controlled, intensive "workshop" rehearsals that span from three months to a year.

Woodruff holds a BA in Theatre from McNeese University, and she has received intensive performance training from the world-renowned groups Dah Teatar of Serbia and Odin Teatret of Denmark, and from Shakespeare & Company of Massachusetts and Vortex Repertory Theatre of Austin, Texas. Her pieces have been seen at New Orleans spaces such as Zeitgeist Arts Center, the Pickery Art Space, the State Palace Theatre, and the Dramarama festival at the Contemporary Arts Center, and she has received artist grants from the Louisiana Division of The Arts and the Jazz & Heritage Foundation of New Orleans. Her works are fiscally sponsored by the NYC independent artists' service organization Fractured Atlas (www.fracturedatlas.org). She created the New Orleans-based performance group Theatre Louisiane, Inc. (www.theatrelouisiane.com) in 1999, and she is a tenth-generation Louisianian of Native North American and French Acadian descent. Her husband and partner-in-crime is geographer Blake Buchert.

Woodruff's stage credits since 1991 include the Louisiana premiere of Maria Irene Fornes' "The Conduct of Life," "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," a rock musical version of Marlowe's "Faustus," a radio version of Genet's "The Maids," and ten pieces that she has produced and performed with Theatre Louisiane, which include material by Moliere, Pinter, Durang, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus, and several original ensemble works. She was also featured as a lead in an educational video for Syndistar, and in several national radio spots for Voodoo Rain Beverages. In the early 1990s Woodruff spent two months in the Republic of Panama working as a photographer's assistant, and in 2004 she attended the United Nations World Theatre Congress in Tampico, Mexico on a Louisiana Division of The Arts mini-grant.

Woodruff's most recent successes include appearing as a Guest Artist in two multimedia pieces: her stage adaptation of the Lovecraft horror tale "The Music of Erich Zann" at McNeese University Theatre, and her one-actor project about rejected women, "dis+graced," which toured to the St-Ambroise Montréal Fringe Festival. Woodruff and her collaborating artists from Theatre Louisiane were honored by New Orleans Magazine as "People to Watch" for 2006-07. She appeared in the V-to-the-Tenth workshop piece "Women & War" in April 2008.

Her current project is a work-in-progress titled "Moon Cove," which debuted at Dramarama 15 in April 2008 and is in development as a touring project. "Moon Cove" is a fictional Louisiana ghost story from the Cajun prairie about Woodruff's non-fictional Acadiana ancestors, which she has created and will perform using solo theatre performance and multimedia projection.

Photo Gallery (7 images)

Stage Credits:



Sonya	....	Uncle Vanya (7/2008)

Narrator/Anielle Theriot *	....	Moon Cove (4/2008)

Medea/Josephine *	....	dis+graced (6/2006)(5/2006)(3/2006)

Narrator *	....	The Music Of Erich Zann (12/2005)(4/2005)(3/2001)(1/2001)

Antigone	....	The Seven: a multimedia war epic of Oedipus' children (1/2004)

Elektra *	....	BloodReign: Orestes/Elektra in remixed collage (7/2003)

The Woman *	....	Laughing Wild (5/2001)

Kratos	....	Mikko Presents ... God (4/2000)

Antigone/Kreon *	....	Grief Doubled: Kreon & Antigone (1/2000)

Cathos *	....	Ridiculous Damsels (11/1999)

Wagner *	....	Faustus (10/1995)

Chrysalis *	....	The Insect Comedy (7/1995)

Nena	....	The Conduct of Life (12/1993)

Oracle	....	Re:vision: The Trojan Women/Wages of War (12/1991)
*=leading role

Offstage Credits:



Creator / Performer; Designer	....	Moon Cove (4/2008)

Creator / Performer	....	Women & War (4/2008)(4/2008)

Production Design; Concept	....	dis+graced (6/2006)(5/2006)(3/2006)

Director; Production Design; Concept	....	The Music Of Erich Zann (12/2005)(4/2005)(3/2001)(1/2001)

Director; Production Design; Videographer; Concept	....	The Seven: a multimedia war epic of Oedipus' children (1/2004)

Director; Production Design; Concept	....	BloodReign: Orestes/Elektra in remixed collage (7/2003)

Director	....	Laughing Wild (5/2001)

Director	....	Pinter Sketches (10/2000)

Production Design; Concept	....	Grief Doubled: Kreon & Antigone (1/2000)

Director	....	Ridiculous Damsels (11/1999)

Assistant Director	....	The Insect Comedy (7/1995)

Stage Awards and Nominations:

Named by New Orleans Magazine as one of their "People to Watch" for 2006-07.
Lake Charles American Press Critics' Marquee Spotlight Performance Award, 1994.
Alpha Psi Omega Theatre Fraternity Acting Award, 1994 (McNeese University).
Kennedy Center-ACTF Irene Ryan Acting Award Nomination, 1993.

Non-stage credits:

Voodoo Rain Beverages National Radio Spots, by R.U.M. Productions, New Orleans, 2001 (Lead).
"The Maids," by Jean Genet. Artists’ Company Theatre, New Orleans, for WRBH-FM, 1999 (Claire).
"Private Lives," by Noël Coward. Artists’ Company Theatre, New Orleans, for WRBH-FM, 1999 (Sybil).
"The Lady of Larkspur Lotion," by Tennessee Williams. Artists’ Company Theatre, New Orleans, for WRBH-FM, 1999 (Mrs. Hardwicke-Moore).