Elizabeth Van Dyke

... Elizabeth Van Dyke will join us in the School to direct our production of THE PIANO LESSON this winter.

An noted actor and director, Elizabeth played Bernice in the noted African American theatre company “Crossroads’” production of PIANO LESSON. She was part of the professional circle which surrounded both the late Lloyd Richards and August Wilson, and is very much looking forward to creating a production of this play in the city in which Wilson lived and worked.

Recently she directed productions of WAITING TO BE INVITED and A RAISIN IN THE SUN at the Ensemble Theatre in Houston, Texas. The production of WAITING was selected for inclusion at the National Black Theatre Festival in 2007, and earned Elizabeth a “Best Director” nomination. Other recent directorial credits include: DININ’, SYLIN’ AND PROFILIN’ (a piece commissioned by the ZORA NEALE HOUSTON FESTIVAL), M ODYESSEY (in development with Ensemble Studio Theatre), GREAT MEN OF GOSPEL: SPIRIT INTO SOUND, at the Bermuda Arts Festival 2005, the Hansberry-Sands Theatre in Milwaukee, Aurora Stage in Jacksonville, Florida, and New Federal Theatre in New York City. She received an AUDELCO nomination for “Best Director” for this last production.

A recipient of Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence in Theatre from Austin-Peay State University, where she taught master classes in acting and directed TI JEAN & HIS BROTHERS by Derek Walcott, Elizabeth directed the very well received SOPHISTICATED LADIES for Kuntu Repertory Theatre here in Pittsburgh. For this production she received an ONYX Award for Best Director and Best Musical of the Year. She was awarded a Rockefeller Grant to study directing and the elements of Japanese Theatre with Yoshi Oida & Peter Brook in Paris, and a Fox Foundation Grant to take a Teacher Development Intensive under the direction of Earl Gister, a former head of the School of Drama.

She serves on the boards of New Federal Theatre in New York, The Passage Theatre in Trenton, New Jersey, and as the Producing Artistic Director of GOING TO THE RIVER a program for the under-served African-American Women Playwrights at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City.

As an actor, she has played Lady MacBeth in MacBeth, Antigone in the Gospel at Colonus, Sister Margaret in The Amen Corner, Mattie Cunningham in Joe Turner’s Come & Gone, Peggy Clark in Blue, Mrs. Dickson in Intimate Apparel, Sophie & Fannie Mae Dove in Flyin’ West, Lady Alithea in The Country Wife, Elisabetta in The Queen & The Rebels, Lorraine Hansberry in Love to All, Lorraine, (Ace Award & Gold Award) & Zora in Zora Neale Hurston.