Vickie Rozell
Director/Dramaturg, Author, Editor
Vickie Rozell
Director/Dramaturg, Author, Editor
Biography
VICKIE ROZELL has directed the world premiere of All the Shah's Men (Arabian Shakespeare Festival); in addition to I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change (Santa Clara University); Veils (The Pear Theatre); Smash (Dragon Productions Theatre Company); Picnic, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, The Little Foxes, and Ladies of the Camellias (Palo Alto Players); CTRL+ALT+DELETE (Pear Avenue Theatre); W;t (Bus Barn Stage Company); Proof (City Lights Theatre Company); and The Vagina Monologues (California Theatre). She also co-directed TheatreWorks’ Doubt.
Her dramaturgy credits include All the Shah's Men and We Made Bread, both for Arabian Shakespeare Festival. She was TheatreWorks' resident research dramaturg for twelve years and was associate director/dramaturg for many of the company's shows including Yellow Face; Caroline, or Change; M Butterfly; Into the Woods; Dolly West’s Kitchen; Shakespeare in Hollywood; A Little Night Music (Mountain View and SF); Jane Eyre; Ragtime; Pacific Overtures; Side Show; and Floyd Collins, among many others. In addition, Rozell has taught at Ohlone and Foothill Colleges, and is a member of the West Coast Director’s Lab. She has BAs in English and Psychology from Stanford University and an MFA in directing from the University of California.
Theatrical Mission Statement
I inherited the storytelling gene from my father. All of my life I heard him tell stories about his formative years—riding his horse down the hall of his school, burning the stumps on his family farm during WWII, storing keepsakes for a Japanese American family who was sent to an internement camp--and it taught me how important storytelling was and led me to tell stories in my own way: through theatre and my writing.
It doesn’t matter what kind of theatre is telling the story, comedy, drama, musical, or tragedy, traditionally scripted, mixed media, or short quick scenes, it is still storytelling and each form reaches out in different ways to different people. I think cross-pollination is important to the vibrancy of the art and the depth of the storytelling. In the same way that working with a wide range of designers and actors can fertilize a director’s imagination, so, too, can working in different genres and styles.
The power of stories becomes more important as our country fractures and we have a more difficult time seeing things from someone else’s point of view. That is the beauty of theatre, a wealthy family can experience the life of a single mother just barely getting by; a Latino family can feel the pressures of an Asian American family; a teenager can face how difficult it is to get old. It could be the twins of Side Show, the nuns of Doubt, the brilliant mathematicians of Proof, the photographers of Time Stands Still, the politicians of Radio Golf, the historical figures in Pacific Overtures, the “broken” couple of Talley’s Folly who find each other, or the assistant Principal and his middle-Eastern student in The North Pool, they all have something to teach us, if only we have a chance to experience their stories and are willing to listen.