Slide ALEC WILD Home Storyteller Maker contact No. 1900 Anderson Road
Falls Church, VA 22043
312.607.8037
alecwild@gmail.com
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START SCROLLING ARTISTIC PRODUCER Academy for Classical Acting Great River Shakespeare Festival Shakespeare in the Streets click to see and read about my producing and directing work, or simply scroll down

Slide Work Academy for Classical Acting Scroll I really love my job.

The Academy for Classical Acting was started in 2001 by Michael Kahn, Founder and Artistic Director of Shakespeare Theatre Company, in cooperation with The George Washington University. It’s mission: to train the next generation of actors for the classical theatre. It is an intensive one-year MFA program that focuses almost entirely on Shakespeare, with a little bit of Jacobean and Restoration thrown into the mix. I sometimes liken it to going to Europe for a year to study one specific thing very intensely.

Since taking over the ACA in 2016, I’ve doubled our fundraising total, increased our prospective student numbers by 300%, and have re-shaped the curriculum into something profound, rigorous, and truly unique. I love the ACA. The students, staff, and world-class faculty make it one of the most exciting, vibrant places to study in the country.

Below is a brief intro film I shot and edited for the ACA, followed by a sampling of ACA shows from the past few years. To see some that I've directed, head over to my Storyteller page.

Visit the ACA at aca.shakesperetheatre.org.

ACA
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Video ACA VIDEO ACADEMY FOR CLASSICAL ACTING vertical_align_top

SEASON PHOTOS ACADEMY FOR CLASSICAL ACTING SWIPE FOR MORE vertical_align_top

Slide Work Shakespeare in the Streets Scroll I’m as proud of this project as anything I’ve ever done.

Shakespeare in the Streets (SITS) is a grassroots theatrical experience that invites St. Louis neighborhoods to tell their stories. Under the auspices of Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, a creative team leads a selected neighborhood in developing an original play based on one of Shakespeare’s works—a play with themes that reflect the community’s character. For the two years I directed the program, we spent more than nine months in each neighborhood, interviewing residents, asking them to tell their stories about growing up there, living there - we get to know them really well.

Residents of the neighborhood contribute to all aspects of the production, from story development to live performance. The result is a weekend-long celebration of their collective effort, with free, live, outdoor performances. The project is a loving and creative way to unite the neighborhood and introduce it as a artistic force to the greater St. Louis area.

Old Hearts Fresh, a contemporary take on The Winter’s Tale, took place in the Grove – an area that used to be a racially divided “red line” between white and black neighborhoods. Nowadays, it’s known in St. Louis as home to the most popular drag clubs in the city. Needless to say, we heard some amazing stories. Playwright Nancy Bell wove the stories into a beautiful tale of reckoning, redemption, and forgiveness.

For Good in Everything, we took up residence in Clayton, MO, where we discovered stories from residents about bussing, cross-racial relationships, and white privilege. As You Like It became the vehicle for these stories, and we built a show that again explored the great racial division in St. Louis.

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OLD HEARTS FRESH SHAKESPEARE IN THE STREETS, ST. LOIUS SWIPE TO SEE MORE vertical_align_top

GOOD IN EVERYTHING SHAKESPEARE IN THE STREETS, ST. LOIUS SWIPE TO SEE MORE vertical_align_top

Slide Work Great River Shakespeare Festival Scroll I was one of three founders of the Great River Shakespeare Festival, and I helped to lead it as Producing Director for seven years. I'm very proud that it's still running strong and producing quality classical theatre in the Midwest – it's a mark of good foundational leadership when an organization thrives after you're gone.

I'm also proud that we led the theatre in a fiscally responsible way. We worked to raise a nearly $1M budget each year, and were careful about deficits and overspending. I've always believed that financial restrictions can be artistically freeing - we're encouraged to solve problems imaginatively. At the peak of the season, we managed 150 employees over several departments.

The director of a large arts organization must wear a lot of hats - something I love to do. GRSF is one of three professional theatres I've led. See some of our work below, or head over to my storytelling page to see photos of the shows I directed at Great River Shakespeare Festival.
GRSF
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