Faculty

Profile

Theater demands that both the maker and the audience engage in the moment and in the imagination. And whether I’m directing Shakespeare, Chekhov, a devised piece or working with New School students at the ‘I HAVE A DREAM’ Theater & Education Afterschool Programs, I find the making of theater asks all of us to collaboratively grapple with impossible but real & generative questions.

Working in an array of disciplines as a writer, director, and collaborator -- my professional work and teaching have focused on -- theater as a medium for engaged dialogue; the “everyday practice of the actor”; taking on classics through a global lens (particularly Shakespeare); transformative arts education, and theater & environmental advocacy.

I recently wrote and directed the documentary play Gage County NE with community members in Beatrice, Nebraska which is featured in each episode of HBO’s Mind Over Murder true-crime series directed by filmmaker Nanfu Wang.  The series has been nominated for multiple awards and the play Gage County NE is highlighted in numerous reviews including the Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Guardian and American Theater Magazine.

I also directed the documentary film, Remembering Shakespeare, which explores new ways of thinking about memory and Shakespeare’s words in our digital age where memory itself is at risk  http://www.rememberingshakespearefilm.com/  My chapter, “If It Live In Your Memory” appears in The Whirlwind of Passion: New Critical Perspectives on William Shakespeare (Cambridge Scholar’s Press).  I recently directed the short whimsical film Menstrual Rosary with a score by Stefania de Kenessey which has won citations and awards at an array of film festivals worldwide.

I have written, devised, and directed theater pieces which have performed at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade and Bruno Walter Theaters, The New Victory @ 42nd Street, Jefferson Market Playhouse, the Washington Square Hotel, WNYC’s Jerome L Greene Performance Space, the New York & Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. I wrote and directed FROM THE FIRE, which won three Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s UK/Music Theater Awards: Best Music, Best Production and Best New Musical and a WNET Public Television documentary of FROM THE FIRE was nominated for a NY Emmy award.  

I am an Associate Professor of Theater at Lang College/The New School and have served as the Dirctor of the Lang College Theater Program which was named one of the top Civic Engagement and Social Justice theater programs in the US by American Theater Magazine. I currently direct the Lang Arts in Context Program and coordinate the ‘I Have a Dream’ Theater & Education Program. I previously was on the faculty at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, NYU’s Playwrights Horizons Studio and NYU’s Kanbar School for Film & Television. I received Lang College Faculty Advisor Excellence Award (2016) and the New School’s Excellence in Teaching Award (2018). I also received a Periclean Faculty Leadership Award and have served in the national Pericles Faculty Leadership cohort (2020-2022) and served as a mentor for the Mellon Initiative for Inclusive Faculty Excellence. 

Portfolio

www.ceciliarubino.com
www.rememberingshakespearefilm.com

Degrees Held

MFA, Yale School of Drama;
BA, Magna cum laude, Williams College

Professional Affiliation

The Association for Theater in Higher Education
The Dramatist Guild
The Remember the Triangle Shirtwaist Coalition
Board Member of Piper Theater, Brooklyn

Research Interests

Interdisciplinary approaches to engaged theater
The "Everyday Practice of the Actor"
Shakespeare and the re-interrogation of classical drama

Documentary/Verbatim Theater and Theater & Human Rights 

Theater in Education and the connections between drama and literacy
The history of acting practice and performance

Awards And Honors

Teaching Awards

Distinguished Teaching Award, The New School, 2018

Lang College Faculty Advisor Excellence Award, 2016

Artistic Awards

Finalist in thirty+ international and national short film Festivals, Menstrual Rosary            2022

Best Music, Production & Best New Musical, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, From the Fire     2011

PBS Documentary on From the Fire, Nominated for a NY Emmy                                       2011

Gracie Award, American Women in Radio & TV, Best Local Drama, Fall of the City          2010