Kentucky Shakespeare Staff
Matt Wallace, Producing Artistic Director
matt@kyshakespeare.comSince 2013 Matt has served as Producing Artistic Director of Kentucky Shakespeare, where he has directed productions including The Woman in Black, Love’s Labor’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Enter Ghost. an immersive haunted Hamlet experience, Shakespeare’s R&J, Twelfth Night, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Turn of the Screw, Shakespeare in Love, Celebrate 60: the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival Anniversary Production, Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: Macbeth, As You Like It, King Lear, The Comedy of Errors, Othello, Titus Andronicus, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Tempest, Hamlet, and Richard III. Favorite acting credits with the company since 2001 include the Player and Guildenstern in productions of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, Orlando in As You Like It, and Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (his first role with the company in 2001).
Since 2008, Matt has been Director of Shakespeare Behind Bars Kentucky Programs. He directed/facilitated eleven seasons of Shakespeare Behind Bars at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex including Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Much Ado About Nothing, Pericles, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and King Lear. He served as Program Director and Facilitator of the SBB Multidisciplinary Juvenile Arts Program at the Audubon Youth Development Center for several years and created and facilitated the Journeymen Programs for 18-21 year-olds at Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex and Luther Luckett Correctional Complex, a partnership with the Kentucky Department of Education and Arts for All Kentucky.
Previously, he served as an Artistic Associate with Kentucky Shakespeare from 2001-2010, was an actor and Director of Children’s Theatre at Derby Dinner Playhouse, and directed and performed at Chicago theaters and across the Midwest. Film and TV credits include roles in The Perfect Gift, 1 Message, Pieces of Easter, and Forrest Gump.
Matt was in the inaugural class of Alden Fellows at the Community Foundation of Louisville and is recipient of the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts Marlene M. Helm Alumni Award, Fund for the Arts Allan Cowen Innovation Award, Broadway World and Arts-Louisville Awards for Best Director, and the Kentucky Council on Crime and Delinquency Volunteer of the Year Award for Outstanding Service and Commitment to the Kentucky Criminal Justice System.
He earned a BFA in Regional Theatre/Acting from the Webster University Conservatory of Theatre Arts in St. Louis.