Bill Rauch: “Adaptation: A Lifetime of Building Bridges”

Bill Rauch is the inaugural Artistic Director of The Perelman Center for the Performing Arts (PAC NYC) at the World Trade Center. His work has been featured on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning production of Robert Schenkkan’s “All The Way” and its companion play “The Great Society,” as well as at many of the largest regional theaters in the country.
From 2007 to 2019, Bill was Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the country’s oldest and largest rotating repertory theater, where he directed seven world premieres as well as innovative productions of classic musicals, including a queer reenvisioning of “Oklahoma!” Among his initiatives at OSF, he committed to commissioning new plays that dramatized moments of change in American history. “American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle” resulted in such plays as Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat” (winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize), Paula Vogel’s “Indecent,” the 1491s’ “Between Two Knees,” Lisa Loomer’s “Roe,” Universes’ “Party People,” Culture Clash’s “American Night,” and Robert Schenkkan’s plays about Lyndon B. Johnson.
Bill is also co-founder of Cornerstone Theater Company, where he served as artistic director from 1986 to 2006, directing more than 40 productions, most of them collaborations with diverse communities nationwide. He has directed world premieres at Portland Center Stage, Center Theater Group, and South Coast Rep, as well as at American Repertory Theater, Yale Rep, the Guthrie, Arena Stage, Seattle Rep, Long Wharf Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Pasadena Playhouse, and Great Lakes Theater Festival. His production of “The Pirates of Penzance” performed at Portland Opera. He was a Claire Trevor Professor at the University of California Irvine and has also taught at the University of Southern California and UCLA.
Cosponsored by the Boston College Theatre Department, English Department, and the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy.
0:00:00 - Introduction
0:00:43 - Welcome Remarks
0:09:11 - Bill Rauch Presentation
0:56:31 - Q&A
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