George McConnell

​Since 2010, I have directed/created/designed over twenty-five critically-acclaimed original ensemble performances and performed in more than fifteen performance art pieces across the country. My work has been shown at the Center for Performance Research and Panoply Performance Lab (Brooklyn), the Walker Art Center, Bedlam Theater and the Southern Theater (Minneapolis), the Annex Theatre (Baltimore),  the Breakthrough Theater (Orlando), the UNCG Project Space (Greensboro), and found-space venues in Chicago, Denver, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Baltimore, Alamosa, Tallahassee, and Tucson. In December of 2019, my 2010 site-specific performance/installation The Thing (co-directed with Samantha Johns) was recognized by the Minneapolis City Pages as one of the “ten best performances of the past decade in the Twin Cities.” In summer of 2022, my original work was awarded the #FringeAF Award by the Denver Fringe festival for “embodying the true essence of the fringe.” In their textbook Explore Theater: A Backstage Pass, Beth Osborne and Michael O’Hara describe my work as performance made for audiences that are, “often young people in search of a different, challenging, and engaging live theatrical experience—one that cannot be replicated in large theaters or reproduced for mass consumption.”
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I have taught Introduction to Theatre, Acting, Advanced Acting, Voice, Directing, Devising, Devising Two, Encounters: Beckett and Ionesco, Performance Art, Performance Theory, and Theatre History (Classical and Contemporary) at Florida State University, Northern Illinois University, Guilford Technical Community College and Adams State University.  I am currently an Associate Professor of Devised Theatre at Texas A&M University.