Matt Foss

Director

Matt Foss received his M.F.A. in acting from Chicago’s Roosevelt University and Ph.D. in theatre studies and directing from Wayne State University in Detroit. Recent professional credits include Red Tape Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Oracle Theatre, Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, American Blues Theatre, The Jewish Ensemble Theatre and Tipping Point Theatre. In 2016, his touring production of The Glass Menagerie performed at Russia’s Moscow Art Theatre. He adapted and directed Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle for Oracle Productions in Chicago in 2014. The production received Chicago Jeff Award Nominations for Outstanding Production, Director, Ensemble, and won for best new adaptation. In 2012 his production of Six Characters at Iowa State University received the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival’s National Award for Outstanding Production of a Play and Outstanding Director of a Play. He directed and co-wrote (with UTOLEDO students Carlos Washington and Alexandria Rayford-West) 2020’s 20K Leagues Under the Sea, which received a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Award. In 2019, his adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front received the Kennedy Center’s David Mark Cohen Playwriting Award. The play had its professional premiere in Chicago in 2019, winning 6 Jeff Awards-including Best Production, Best Ensemble and Best New Work. Foss was the co-writer and a producer of the award-winning short film, SONS OF TOLEDO (2021) and was named one of the Austin Film Festival and Movie Maker Magazine’s Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch for 2023 and his first feature film will premiere in 2024. Foss was the recipient of the ATHE/KCACTF Prize for Innovative Teaching in 2013 and the 2020 University of Toledo Edith Rathburn Outreach and Engagement Excellence Award. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America (EAST).