Steven Young, MFA

Associate Professor of Theatre

Steven Young was trained as an actor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Professional Theatre Training Program and received an MFA in directing from Illinois State University. 

Steven is the author of The King’s Face – most recently produced by Dallas Shakespeare; it was the winner of the FutureFest and Southwest Playwriting Competitions, was a finalist at Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, The Landing Theatre and the Woodard/Newman Drama Award. Yale Repertory Theatre and the Public Theatre have both requested copies. Staged readings of The King’s Face – Blank Theatre in Los Angeles, Panglossian Productions, Last Act and Amphibian Stage Productions. Giant Olive Theatre Company of London produced the show Off West End. Exit Caesar Chavez – was performed last month at the Bellarmine International Play Festival and was a MATC participant as well as an ATHE alternate. Under the Overpass – the winner of the TeCo Literary Award and the Broadway World Dallas Regional Award for Best Short play, produced in Texas, Cleveland, Denver and New York.

The Night We Bombed Lincoln Towing is the winner of the Centre Stage New Play Competition, a finalist for the AACT Play Festival and a semifinalist for the Ashland Play Festival, it received a reading at the Road Theatre in LA directed by Anne Hearne-Tobolowsky and featured Jim Beaver, and is in production negotiations with Stage Right Theatre. His play The Soothsayer – produced in Manchester UK, New York, Chicago, Connecticut, Texas, Kansas City and Montreal. Blank Canvas – top 50 for the Heideman Award at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, produced at the Maddox Theatre, NYC. The Wal*Mart-ians – Jerome Fellowship and Reva Shiner Comedy Award finalist, Chicago Arts & Entertainment’s Best Comedy of the Year award and was originally produced in Chicago. The Resurrectionists – was nominated for two Joseph Jefferson Citations and produced in Virginia and Chicago. Cheddar Heads – finalist National New Plays Network and originally produced at the Theatre Building-Chicago. The Night Witches – produced at Texas Women’s University, Brighton Fringe and will receive a West Coast premiere with the Theatre Group at Santa Ynes High School. His most recent full-length play Obscenity – was developed at the MATC Plays in Progress workshop.

Steven has directed at such theatres as the Cambridge and Stamford Shakespeare Festivals in the UK, the Milwaukee Rep, the Chicago Shakespeare Project, The Illinois Shakespeare Festival, American Southwest Theatre Company, Virginia Stage Company, New American Theatre and Swine Palace. He has served three times as an artistic director, most notably for Chicago’s Boxer Rebellion Ensemble, which the Chicago Tribune noted as one of the cities fifteen best companies. He was an alternate for New York Drama League’s Directors Fellowship.

As an actor he has performed in over a hundred plays, including the one-man show The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at Amphibian Stage Productions. Steven boasts of having performed over fifty Shakespearian roles in productions around the world. He is very proud of winning the national Shakespeare Quarterly’s Justin Shaltz Award for best supporting actor for his portrayal of Falstaff in Henry IV part 2. Steven is an alternate in the clowning and acting divisions for Cirque Soliel and has performed in many readings and productions with Shakespeare Dallas.