Benny Sato Ambush

Benny Sato Ambush is the former Artistic Director of Venice, Florida's Venice Theatre, America’s largest per capita Community Theatre. He is a veteran, well-traveled professional theatrical stage director (member, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society union - SDC), an MFA-BFA-BA teacher of stage acting and directing nationally, a theatre consultant, and a published commentator. Formerly: Senior Distinguished Producing Director-In-Residence, Emerson Stage, and Acting/Directing faculty, Department of Performing Arts, Emerson College - Boston; Artistic Director, TheatreVirginia (LORT C) - Richmond, VA; Producing Artistic Director, Oakland (CA) Ensemble Theatre (SPT) - Oakland, CA; Acting Artistic Director,  Rites and Reason Theatre Company, Brown University (Academic) - Providence, RI; 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; Florida Stage; New Harmony Project; Actors Guild of Lexington; Alaska Theatre of Youth; Florida Rep; 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.

 

Learn more at bennysatoambush.com.
 

Photo credit: Barbara Banks

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Benny directs a scene from an early rehearsal. Video by Joe Wrinn.