Dámaso Rodríguez

Director

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Dámaso Rodríguez is in his eighth season as Artistic Director of Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland’s longest-running professional theatre company, which became a member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) under his leadership. Plays developed during his tenure have been produced in New York, Chicago, London, and throughout the U.S. Acclaim for Artists Rep developed projects includes the Dramatists Guild Foundation Award, the Edgerton New Play Award, NEA Funding, American Theatre Magazine’s Most Produced Plays list, and coverage in the New Yorker and the New York Times.

He is a Co-Founder of L.A.’s Furious Theatre, where he served as Co-Artistic Director from 2001-2012.  From 2007-2010 he served as Associate Artistic Director of the Pasadena Playhouse, where he directed main stage productions and oversaw programming for the Playhouse’s second stage, including its Hothouse New Play Development Program. He has directed a broad range of new and classic plays including over 20 Artists Rep productions, along with work at the Pasadena Playhouse, Intiman Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theater, Seattle Rep, A Noise Within, The Playwrights’ Center, The Theatre@Boston Court, Odyssey Theatre, The Blank Theatre, The Road Theatre, The Zephyr Theatre and Furious Theatre.

Dámaso is a recipient of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, the Back Stage Garland Award, the NAACP Theatre Award, and the Pasadena Arts Council’s Gold Crown Award. He was honored as a Finalist for the Zelda Fichandler Award by the Stage Directors & Choreographers Foundation and was named a Knowledge Universe Rising Star by Portland Monthly. His productions have received or been nominated for dozens of awards including the L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Award, LA StageScene Award, and the LA Weekly Theatre Award, among others.  He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

Current directing projects: Magellanica (Audio Drama) by E.M. Lewis, The Berlin Diaries (Audio Drama) by Andrea Stolowitz, The Vertical City (Audio Drama) by Diana Burbano, Today is My Birthday (Audio Drama) by Susan Soon He Stanton, The Great Divide by E.M. Lewis in development at Artists Rep/Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Directing credits: Romeo and Juliet at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the World Premiere of We, the Invisibles by Susan Soon He Stanton for the Humana Festival of New American Plays, Kings by Sarah Burgess at South Coast Repertory, the World Premiere of Wolf Play by Hansol Jung, the World Premiere of Magellanica by E.M. Lewis, the World Premiere musical Cuba Libre by Carlos Lacámara featuring the 3-time Grammy nominated band Tiempo Libre, Portland premieres of La Ruta by Isaac Gomez, The Humans by Stephen Karam, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon and Everybody, Nina Raine’s Tribes and David Ives’ The Liar, the Northwest premieres of Carlos Lacámara’s Exiles and Nick Jones’ Trevor, the west coast premieres of Dan LeFranc’s The Big Meal, Charise Castro Smith’s Feathers & Teeth, 1984 by George Orwell adapted by Duncan Macmillan & Robert Icke, and The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart by David Greig;  the U.S. premiere of Dawn King’s Foxfinder, The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder, The Miracle Worker by William Gibson, The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge, at Artists Rep; Ruth & Augustus Goetz’ The Heiress (starring Richard Chamberlain), Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes (starring Kelly McGillis), Austin Pendleton’s Orson’s Shadow (starring Sharon Lawrence) and the reading of Ellen Simon’s Aunt Stossie’s Coming for Five Days (starring Marsha Mason & Mary Steenburgen) at the Pasadena Playhouse; the reading of Steven Drukman’s The Prince of Atlantis for the Pacific Playwrights Festival at South Coast Repertory, Clifford Odets’ Paradise Lost at Intiman Theatre; Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, Tennessee Williams’ The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms, Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma at A Noise Within. Furious Theatre credits include the Los Angeles premieres of Craig Wright’s Grace, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s Boom and Hunter Gatherers, Bruce Norris’ The Pain and the Itch, Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat, Richard Bean’s The God Botherers, and the world premieres of Alex Jones’ Canned Peaches in Syrup and Matt Pelfrey’s An Impending Rupture of the Belly and No Good Deed, among others.