Mark Hairston

A native of Washington, DC, Mark H. is a director, performer, and educator with a primary focus on American theater and theater of the African diaspora. He approaches theater as an art form, as well as an ancient technology for sight, communication, development, and healing. The theater that most excites him is classical, post-dramatic, physical, site-specific and immersive, sustainable and resource conscious, and aimed at community development. His directing highlights include Julius Caesar, The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom, King Lear, The Cherry Orchard, The Henry Dumas Project, and Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea. Along with directing, Mark has worked extensively as a professional actor with some of the nation’s leading theater companies. He received his BFA in Acting with high honors from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts and is a graduate of the MFA Directing program at Columbia University School of the Arts, where he was the Dean’s Fellow and studied under the mentorship of Anne Bogart and Brian Kulick. He received his classical theater training at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London.