

Today we’d like to introduce you to George McConnell.
Hi George, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My life in theatre started with an elementary school Christmas pageant. I was the narrator. I began acting in earnest in High School and went on to earn my BA in Theatre Performance from Western Michigan University. After undergrad, I moved to several big cities (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles) and had a couple of agents, had some big auditions, but booked zero big roles. All the while, I was also directing my own theatre work. I really loved directing, and acting lost the appeal it had for me. I went on to get my MA from Florida State University in Theatre Studies and my PhD in Theatre Historiography from the University of Minnesota. I’m now the Head of the Creative Collaboration Track and Assistant Professor of Theatre at Adams State University–a small, rural university in Alamosa, CO. I direct shows for the university and I continue to make my own work. I had two original pieces in two different fringe festivals over the summer of 2022: FUCK YEAH in the Denver Fringe, and swim team in the Minnesota Fringe. I like directing other people’s work, but I love devising my own.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s all struggle all of the time. Trying to find acting work in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York was really rough. I was good (lucky) enough to have an agent in both Chicago and Los Angeles, but nothing really came of it. When you’re trying to be an actor, you also have to work to pay your bills and it’s very easy to run out of energy with it split like that. I found that it was just easier to make my own work. I figured out how to rent cheap spaces and work with collaborators to make work I really cared about.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a director who makes original work by collaborating with actors/creators. This process is known as devising. We don’t begin with a completed script. Through a series of prompts, proposals, games, structures, and responses to the world around us we generate the material. I developed a way of working with a great Minneapolis artist named Samantha Johns. We created ten or so shows together, but because I left Minneapolis to teach, our ability to collaborate has been impaired. The end result of this process is often described by my collaborators and audience members as “weird shit.” It’s non-narrative, image and movement based theatrical performance. It rarely involves the actors playing characters as most people expect in theatre. It’s very closely related to performance art, but performance artists would tell you it isn’t performance art. The work lives in a messy (and hopefully interesting) space between theatre and performance art. It’s often funny, and confusing, and heartbreaking.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
I recently read somewhere that anyone over 40 should have a mentor under 30. So I asked my friend/collaborator Molly Thomas if she would be my mentor. We had our first mentor meeting last week, and she gave me two assignments to complete by the end of the month. It’s still a very new mentor relationship, but so far, I would recommend everyone to get a Molly.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.georgedavidmcconnell.com
Image Credits
Cristal Zeballos
Alex Wohlhueter
Ji Yang
Cait Cameron
Sergio Soltero
Kathy Cates