Scholarship and Biography
Adrianne Krstansky is a professional actor and currently Professor of Theater Arts and the Louis, Francis and Jeffrey Sachar Chair in Creative Arts at Brandeis University. In the New England area she has performed at Huntington Theater Company, Hartford Stage Company, The American Repertory Theater, Speakeasy Stage Company, Boston Playwrights Theater, New Repertory Theater, Lyrics Stage Company, Gloucester Stage Company and Commonwealth Shakespeare among others. She is the winner of Boston's Eliot Norton Award and Independent Reviewers Awards for her performance in Come Back Little Sheba at the Huntington Theater Company and an Independent Reviewers award for her solo performance in Every Brilliant Thing at Speakeasy Stage Company. In New York City and regionally she has appeared at The Shakespeare Theater in Washington DC, The Kitchen Theater (NY), The Public Theater (NYC), Atlantic Theater Company (NYC), Steppenwolf Theater (Chicago), LaJolla Playhouse (CA). Film credits include featured roles in Columbia Picture's Little Women (Greta Gerwig), American Woman, The Company Men and the HBO miniseries, Olive Kitteridge and AMC's Invitation to a Bonfire. She developed and performed the lead role in the new play The Art of Burning by Kate Snodgrass at the Huntington Theater and Hartford Stage Company. She recently appeared as Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman at Hartford Stage Company and Leopoldstadt at the Huntington Theater and at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington DC. She works as an actor on new play development with the Huntington Theater, American Repertory Theater, Boston Playwrights, among others. Her adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s A Mark on the Wall was presented at the International Virginia Woolf Conference 2014. Upcoming work includes the world premiere of Black Cat by Dan Hunter at Boston Playwrights and the development of a stage adaptation of Thomas Bernhard's The Woodcutters at The Department of Theater at MIT in Cambridge, MA and through a residency at Martha Vineyard's Playhouse/Circuit Arts.
She has worked as a director at Shakespeare and Company (Lennox, MA) Actors Shakespeare Project ( Boston) and Merrimack Repertory Theater (MA)
She is a tenured Professor of Theater Arts at Brandeis University where she teaches Acting and Improvisation. She is the recipient of multiple teaching awards at Brandeis: the Michael Walzer ’56 Award for Teaching, the Lerman-Neubauer Prize for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring and the Ratner Distinguished Teaching Award. She holds an MFA from the Professional Actor Training Program at the University of California, San Diego and has a BA in Theater Arts from Beloit College. She is a member of the Actors Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild.