Thomas Riccio

Thomas Riccio is a Professor of Performance and Aesthetic Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, previous positions include: Professor of Theatre, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Artistic Director, Chicago's Organic Theater Company; Resident Director and Dramaturg, Cleveland Play House; Assistant Literary Director, American Repertory Theatre; Visiting Professor, University of Der es Salaam and the Korean National University for the Arts; and Artistic Director, Tuma Theatre, an Alaska Native performance group. He has directed over one hundred plays at American regional theatres, off-off and off Broadway, and at the National Theatre of Italy, with other productions touring Russia, Africa, and Europe. Riccio worked extensively in the area of indigenous performance, ritual, and shamanism, developing performances and/or fieldwork in South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Russia, Republic of Sakha (Siberia), Korea, China, Vietnam, and Alaska. His plays and devised works have been produced in eight countries. His play Comeback For Elvis, ran in repertory at the Kleist Theatre in Frankfurt. He has presented workshops and lectures internationally. His academic writings have appeared in TDR, TheatreForum, Theatre Topics, Theatre Research International, and Performing Arts Journal. Peter Lang published Performing Africa: Remixing Tradition, Theater and Culture, 2007. He received an International Distinction Prize in Playwrighting from The Alexander Onassis Foundation, 2006. He is Lead Narrative Engineer for Hanson Robotics, co-authoring several robot personalities, among them Zeno for the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. Current interests include performance immersions and media installations. The Dallas Theatre Festival premiered his video, There is Never a Reference Point in 2009. Central Trak Gallery presented his installation, The Invention of Memory, (created with Frank Dufour), summer 2010. He is a Producing Artist with Project X, and recently wrote and directed Some People, Orange Oranges, and So There for the Dallas-based company. During the fall 2009 he devised a performance, Andegna (the first) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His play, TNB was given a staged reading at the Great Plains Theatre Conference, 2010. His play Iliar will be part of the Undermain Theater 2011 play reading series.