Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe (director) has directed productions of August Wilson’s Piano Lesson and the World Premiere of Robert Alexander’s A Preface To The Alien Garden at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI; Yellowman at Curious Theatre in Denver; The Old Settler at TheatreWorks, Palo Alto (for which she won a Dean Goodman Award for Excellence) and Water Tower Theatre in Dallas (which received Best Production, 2 Best Acting Awards and an Outstanding Direction nomination from the 2003 Rabin awards).
In 2006, She received a second Rabin nomination for her direction of Neil LaBute’s This Is How It Goes at Water Tower. Edris’s San Francisco credits include the West Coast premiere of Relativity at the Magic Theatre and the Southern premiere at Southern Rep, Stealin Home at Exit Theatre; Crying Holy at Theatre Rhinoceros and Urban Zulu Mambo w/ Rhodessa Jones at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.
She has additional directing credits at Woolly Mammoth in Washington, DC, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Capital Rep in Albany, NY. She directed and assisted with American Conservatory Theatre’s MFA Program on Robert O’Hara’s An American Ma(u)l and Femi Osofisan’s Who’s Afraid Of Solarin? With the company she founded, Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience, Edris has produced and directed On The Hills Of Black America and Hollis Mugley’s Only Wish +2 by Keith Adkins; Chain and Late Bus To Mecca by Pearl Cleage; Will He Bop, Will He Drop? by Robert Alexander and presented three plays by Robert O’Hara — Booty Candy, Living Room and Leigh. She served on the selection committee of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival from 2000-2003.
She holds an MFA in Directing from the University of Iowa and is an alumna of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program For Directors. Additional training has included theater research and performance at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and Shakespeare & Company, Tanglewood, Mass. She was an Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing at Indiana University, from 2006-2010, where she led a company of thirty students in Robert O’Hara’s American Ma(u)l, the Congolese satire, Parentheses of Blood and has mounted productions of Suzan Lori Parks’ The America Play and 365 Festival project. She developed the IU Black Play Lab with an initial $50,000 award from New Frontiers Fellowship. With playwrights Robert Alexander and playwright, Niyi Coker Jr., whose play was recently done in Nigeria for Wole Soyina’s birthday celebration. She recently performed as part of Northwestern University’s solo/black/woman performance festival. Edris is a current member of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival Selection Committee.
