Richard Trousdell
Professor Emeritus, Acting and Directing
B.A., Adelphi, M.A. New York University, M.F.A., D.F.A., Yale University
Richard Trousdell came to the Department in 1978 to direct for The Commonwealth Stage and to teach directing and directing theory.
Trained at the Yale School of Drama by Nikos Psacharopoulos and Gerald Freedman, he later directed and taught at Canada’s Queen’s University, and was guest artist in residence at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Trinity University in Texas. His professional theater experience includes work at the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Dallas Theater Center, and the Clyde Unity Theater of Glasgow for the Edinburgh Festival.
At UMass, his productions include Equus with Dennis Boutsikaris, The Scarecrow and Simon of Cyrene with Bill Pullman for Theater-in-the-Works, the premiere of Connie Congdon’s The Bride for the New England Theater Festival, and The Merchant of Venice with Liev Schreiber, Jeff Donovan, and Kate Wilson.
To give undergraduate directors a showcase for their talent, he created and produced the “Lunch in the Lobby” series. Because he also worked to bring students and artists of color into the mainstream of the Department, he directed the first co-production between the Theater Department and New World Theater in 1987 of Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel with guest artist Gordon Heath, Jeffrey Wright, and choreographer Pearl Primus.
During his tenure as Department Chair (1997-2000) Professor Trousdell and Professor Virginia Scott organized the Department’s 25th Anniversary Celebration and Reunion in 1998.
His publications in Yale Theater, The Drama Review, Theatre Topics, and the Massachusetts Review focus on the work of major directors in rehearsal, including Giorgio Strehler, Judith Malina, and Peter Sellars.
A Jungiam Analyst, IAAP, of the C. G. Jung Institute-Boston, he also teaches, publishes and lectures widely on the relationship between theater and depth psychology, in the Jung Journal of Culture and Psyche(2008), at the Nomikos Foundation in Greece (2009), and in Ancient Greece, Modern Psyche, Spring Publications (2011).