Jack Tamburri’s work as a director of plays includes the recent world premiere of Michi Barall’s Drawing Lessons at Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis, a community-based glam musical Twelfth Night for Shakespeare in Clark Park (Philadelphia), the experimental play Parrot Talk for writer/producer Julius Ferraro (Philadelphia), the rock music adaptation PEER GYNT & the Norwegian Hapa Band for Ma-Yi Theater Co (New York), and well-received productions of Mac Wellman’s Dracula and Shakespeare’s The Tempest at the Yale Cabaret.

As a deviser-director, Jack has worked with esteemed artists such as the Berserker Residents (These Terrible Things), solo performers Mary McCool (Stress Exorcist) and Jenson Titus (I Was Confused From the Beginning), and Pig Iron Theater Co (dramaturg, A Hard Time). He directed visual-and-performance-artist doug greene’s fantasy funeral Memento Mori for the Painted Bride Art Center (RIP). Jack co-created and produced fringe comedies Not For Profit and GAYZE with writer MJ Kaufman, and is co-creator with Terry Brennan of School Play, a touring physical theatre solo for young audiences which was showcased at the 2018 IPAY conference.

He also directed the short films Sophocles in Staten Island and Clifford Odets in Staten Island, produced during the high pandemic by Ma-Yi Studio. Both were written by Michi Barall and Sung Rno and featured actor Ron Domingo and his family.

Jack has developed new plays with playwrights R. Eric Thomas, David Jacobi, MK Tuamanen, and more.

Jack is also an educator. He served as the Director of the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Purchase College, SUNY from 2019 to 2024, where he continues to lecture and direct in the Acting, Theatre & Performance, and Playwriting programs. He has directed educational productions of Spring Awakening (the play), Carrie: The Musical, Ellen McLaughlin’s Helen, and Ravel and Colette’s chamber opera L’enfant et les Sortileges.

Jack is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Yale School of Drama, and is a proud alumnus of ArtEquity’s national facilitator training for anti-racist activists in the performing arts.

Photography courtesy of Brave Lux