Jeff Janisheski

Jeff Janisheski is a teacher, arts manager, director and writer. He focuses extensively on international collaborations: over the past twenty years he has taught and directed in Australia, England, Japan, Korea, Russia, Vietnam and the US. Before he joined CSU – as Chair of the Theatre Arts Department and Artistic Director of Cal Rep – from 2012-2015 he was Head of Acting at Australia’s leading drama school, the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). From 2008-2011 Jeff was Artistic Director of the National Theater Institute (NTI) at the Tony Award-winning Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut, America’s preeminent organization dedicated to the development of new plays and music theatre. From 2004-2008 he was Associate Artistic Director at New York’s Classic Stage Company (CSC) where he associate-produced shows featuring Anne Bogart/SITI Company, Alan Cumming, David Ives, Pavol Liska/Nature Theater of Oklahoma, David Oyelowo, John Turturro and Dianne Wiest. He co-founded and co-directed the biennial New York International Butoh Festival; from 2003-2007 he presented the work of over fifty butoh-inspired artists from Europe, Japan, South America and the US. He is currently writing a chapter for the forthcoming Palgrave book, The Training and Education of Actors, which will be an international survey of contemporary theatre training. Jeff holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University and studied in Japan for over three years with butoh’s co-creator Kazuo Ohno.