ABOUT

George Judy is Gresdna A. Doty Professor of Theatre at The Louisiana State University, where he headed the M.F.A. Acting Program and served as Artistic Director of Swine Palace, the AEA theatre in residence at LSU. Professor Judy is a member of Actors Equity Association, and has worked as a member of the Screen Actors Guild, as well as an associate member of Society of Directors and Choreographers and the Dramatist’s Guild. He was honored to be invested as a Fellow of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center alongside such theatre luminaries as Michael Khan and William Esper in 2013.

His credits as an actor, writer, director and educator include work with the Royal National Theatre Studio, London, The Asolo Theatre, Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Pennsylvania Centre Stage, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Texas Shakespeare Festival, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, The Warehouse theatre and twelve seasons with the Tony award winning Utah Shakespearean Festival where he performed and was a producing director for USF’s Plays in Progress, which developed important new works and playwrights for the American theatre. New play work for Swine Palace includes the development of three new plays chosen from more than 200 nationwide submissions as part of the SCIARTS at LSU project which will have its second new play festival in the coming year and playing KD/Lear in the world premiere of Lauren Gunderson's The Heath.

Favorite projects include directing his highly praised adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, August: Osage County, a new stage version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and the Louisiana premiere of Adrian Hall’s adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s All the Kings Men as well as appearing in the title role of KING LEAR. Favorite roles from more than a decade on the Shakespeare Festival circuit include Falstaff, Bottom, and Polonius, His award winning adaptation of Sophocles' ANTIGONE is published by Pioneer Drama and has been anthologized and performed across the country. Recent credits include directing his adaptation of KING LEAR with a female Lear and foregrounding the women in the play for the Texas Shakespeare Festival where he also directed MUCH ADO and TARTUFFE. His rollicking version of THE BOOK OF WILL, which he directed for Swine Palace last year while also playing the role of Burbage was highly praised and in the coming season he will appear as an AEA guest artist in their production of RED VELVET.

Professor Judy’s life-long passion for Shakespeare led to the creation of the Swine Palace Summer Festival which produced 100 minute versions of some of the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays in repertory, including The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It which he adapted and directed for enthusiastic summer audiences and remounted for educational matinee and tour audiences during the regular Swine Palace season introducing college, high school and middle school audiences to the wonders of the Bard of Avon.

George is based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he lives with his beautiful wife Kathy.