Biography of Craig D. Kinzer
Craig Kinzer has spent more than 30 years working in not-for-profit, the arts, and education. From 1986 until 2009, he was Associate Professor of Theatre at Northwestern University, where in addition to teaching a wide range of classes, he served as Director of the Master of Fine Arts Program in Stage Directing. In that capacity, he developed curricula in collaboration, group communication, strategic planning, and production management. Prior to his professorship, he served as Artistic Director of CSC Repertory, an off-Broadway resident theatre in New York City. There, he was responsible for all aspects of the artistic operation of the theatre—season planning, recruitment, production scheduling, personnel management—as well as representing the enterprise to numerous audiences and stakeholders, including funders, the press, the theatrical unions, and the New York theatre community. For 15 years, he was on the faculty of the National High School Institute’s Theatre Arts Division, and for seven of those years served as director. The nation’s oldest and largest summer theatre institute, the NHSI attracted high school seniors from across the country for an intensive immersion in all aspects of theatre. Craig was responsible for the entire range of administrative responsibilities, including scheduling, admissions, financial aid, curriculum planning, and recruitment of a large professional staff.
Craig has served on the boards of a number of arts organizations, including the National Children’s Theatre for the Environment and the EconoArt Theatre, where he also served as artistic advisor. In New York, he was a member of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (ART/NY) and the off-Broadway Theater Association. He was Associate Master of the Jones Fine Arts Residential College, and a fellow at the International Studies Residential College at Northwestern. He served for two years as conference planner for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. He was a member of the planning committee for the French Theatre Festival in Chicago in 2003, and was a member of the Consiel d’Etablissement of the Lycee Francais de Chicago. He has served as block representative to the Lakewood/Balmoral Resident’s Council, and has worked on a number of projects with Habitat for Humanity.
Craig is on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-kinzer-4409462/.
