Mark Charney

Mark Charney earned his M.A. at the University of New Orleans and his Ph.D. from Tulane and is Chair of Theatre and Dance at Texas Tech University. He was Associate Director of the National Critics Institute for the O’Neill Theatre Center for 19 years and is Professor Emeritus at Clemson University. His play The Power Behind the Palette won the David Mark Cohen Award and a stage reading at ATHE in Los Angeles. His The Balloon Handler Makes Good was performed at the New Plays Festival in California, the ATHE in DC, Ten for Tenn Festival, and Warner International Festival. International premieres include Empty Roads with Cars, Turkey; Shooting Blanks, Prague; Public Domain: A Play with Footnotes, Dubai; and The Decameron Project, Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Upcoming credits and events include If Christ Were Born in a Barn, Dyin’ in a Van Ain’t so Bad, the West End; Revenge of the Oompa Loopas, Rose Theatre in DC; induction into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre in April, Kennedy Center. He is an honorary member of the Actors Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in L.A. based on his work in criticism and dramaturgy nationwide, and is also Artistic Director of the International Association of Schools of Southeast Asia. Charney created several experiential learning programs at Texas Tech, including the Tennessee Williams Festival Institute in Provincetown, and he helped raise 50 million dollars for a new theatre and dance complex.