Benny Sato Ambush
Director/Story
Benny Sato Ambush is the Artistic Director of Venice, Florida's Venice Theatre. He is a professional theatrical stage director (member, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society union - SDC), an educator, theatre consultant, and published commentator. Formerly: Senior Distinguished Producing Director-In-Residence - Emerson Stage, Boston; Acting/Directing Faculty, Department of Performing Arts, Emerson College, Boston; Artistic Director - TheatreVirginia (LORT C); Producing Artistic Director - Oakland (CA) Ensemble Theatre (SPT); Acting Artistic Director - Rites and Reason Theatre Company, Brown University (Academic); Visiting Arts Professor - NYU Graduate Acting Program & Artist in Residence, Tisch School of the Arts, NYC.
Professional Regional Directing (Select): Old Globe Theater; American Conservatory Theater; Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland; South Coast Rep; Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Merrimack Repertory Theatre; Arizona Theatre Company; TheatreVirginia; Oakland Ensemble Theatre; Magic Theatre; Geva Theatre; Playwrights Horizon; Ford's Theatre; American Repertory Theater Institute; Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays; Lincoln Center Theater Institute; Heart of America Shakespeare Festival; New Harmony Project; Actors Guild of Lexington; Alaska Theatre of Youth; International Theatre Festival of Chicago; Sacramento Theatre Company; National Black Theatre Festival; Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre; Lyric Stage Company of Boston; Gloucester Stage Company; The New Rep; TheatreSquared; Underground Railway Theater.
Teaching (select): NYU Graduate Acting Program (MFA); University of North Carolina School of the Arts (BFA); Emerson College (BFA, BA); Brown University (BA); Brooklyn College (MFA); Circle in the Square Theatre School (MFA).
Emeritus Board Member - Theatre Communications Group (TCG);
Former National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) panelist and peer site evaluator; United States Information Agency Cultural Tour Delegate to Kenya and the former Soviet Union; Member - The National Theatre Conference; Founding Steering Committee Member - The National Alliance of Acting Teachers; Former Director of the Institute for Teledramatic Arts and Technology, California State University - Monterey Bay; American Association of Community Theatre Adjudicator; Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Respondent; Panelist - National Alliance for Musical Theatre; Member - College of Fellows of the American Theatre (induction April 2019).
MFA in Directing, University of California, San Diego.
B.A. Theatre Arts and Dramatic Literature, Brown University.
Photo credit: Barbara Banks