Jennie Israel

Jennie Israel joined the faculty in 2017 and is an associate professor of theater.

Israel is a founder of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, where she was associate artistic director from 2004 to 2009, casting director from 2004 to 2019, and has been a resident acting company member since 2004. Her roles with the Actors’ Shakespeare Project include Voumnia in Coriolanus, Maria in Twelfth Night, Margaret and eight additional roles in Richard III, Queen Isabella in Edward II, Emilia in Othello, Queen Margaret in Henry VI, Part II, Jacques in As You Like It, the title role in Medea, the title role in The Duchess of Malfi, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Constance in King John, Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well, Elizabeth in Richard III, and Calphurnia in Julius Caesar, among others.

Other local credits include Dancing at Lughnasa, Table Manners, and Living Together at Gloucester Stage Company; Boston Marriage, Tartuffe, and Dollhouse at New Repertory Theatre; Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Huntington Theatre Company; Living in Exile, Comedy of Errors, and The Heidi Chronicles at Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse; Molly Maguire at the Sugan Theatre; Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Phoebe in As You Like It for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; and Undine’s Valediction, Summer, The Scarlet Letter, and Macbeth with Shakespeare & Company. Regional acting credits include Yale Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Lincoln Center Theatre, Theatre Building Chicago, the Greenwich Street Theatre, Ohio Theatre Soho, Sun Valley Shakespeare Festival, and Chautauqua Theatre Festival.

Film and television credits include Rudy for TriStar Pictures, Guiding Light, and Coming to Litchfield. Directing credits include Measure for Measure and Twelfth Night for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; Measure for Measure and Romeo and Juliet at Harvard College; Dancing at Lughnasa, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Macbeth at UMass Lowell; and Chicago, The Beaux Stratagem, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and Volta for the Concord Academy Performing Arts Department.

In 1992, Israel founded Chicago’s Eclipse Theatre, which is still in existence today. In addition to Boston Conservatory at Berklee, she has been on the faculties of Bowdoin College, Boston College, SUNY/Purchase, UMass Lowell, Concord Academy, Ecole International de Boston, and Emerson College.

Israel was a guest presenter at the World Shakespeare Congress in Prague in 2011. She also copioneered the Incarcerated Youth at Play project, working with incarcerated girls and Shakespeare’s texts from 2004 to 2008. She holds an M.F.A. in acting from the Yale School of Drama.