JUSTIN EMEKA

director/filmmaker

BIO

 Justin Emeka is a professional director that works nationally and internationally in theater and film.  He is a full member of SDC (Society of Stage Directors & Choreographers) and also serves on SDC's Executive Board as a Regional Rep.  He is the Resident Director at Pittsburgh Public Theater. Some of his PPT productions include Lynn Nottage's Sweat; Christopher Demus-Scott's American Son;  August Wilson's Two Trains Running. Off-Broadway credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet at Classical Theatre of Harlem. Other Regional productions include:  Sweat at the Philadelphia Theatre Company; Sunset Baby by Dominique Morisseau at Dobama Theatre in Cleveland; Stick Fly by Lydia Diamond at Intiman Theatre in Seattle;  Ma Rainey's Black Bottom by August Wilson; Paradise Blue and Detroit ’67 by Dominique Morisseau at Karamu House in Cleveland; A Raisin in the Sun by Loraine Hansberry at the Oberlin Summer Theatre Festival and ArtsWest in Seattle.  

A long-time educator, Emeka is a tenured professor of Theater and Africana Studies at Oberlin College where he teaches directing, acting, and Capoeira.  For the MainStage,  he directed Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (featuring Avery Brooks and Petronia Paley); Antigone by Zora Howard; Macbeth by Shakespeare; The Bluest Eye by Lydia Diamond and Wedding Band by Alice Childress.  As a guest artist at Juilliard, he directed Lucas Hnath's A Doll House pt. 2 and at NYU Grad Acting he directed and adapted Moliere's The Would-Be Gentleman into The Boougie Gentleman.  At the University of Washington's Ethnic Cultural Theatre he directed Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie; Amiri Baraka's Dutchman; and Aishah Rahman's Unfinished Women Cry in No Man's Land While a Bird Dies in a Guilded Cage.   At Yale Rep, he served as the movement coordinator and played the role of Edgar in a unique African-American production of King Lear starring Avery Brooks directed by Hal Scott.  He has taught workshops at New York University, Julliard, Carnegie Mellon, Old Globe, University of Michigan, Skidmore College and more.  He is also a writer and has received awards in playwriting from the Seattle Arts Commission, and screenwriting from the Washington State Film Commission.  He published an essays "Seeing Shakespeare through Brown Eyes" in the book "Black Acting Methods:  Critical Approaches"; and "Playing with Race in the New Millennium" in the book "Casting a Movement".  

Recently, in recognition of his outstanding achievements in directing, Justin Emeka received

 a Drama League Fellowship in Television/Film Directing.  He served on location in Prague as the "Shadow Director" for two episodes of  the Disney+ Limited (8-part) series, A Small Light. He completed his first short film, "Six Winters Gone Still" and is in pre-production for his next short, "Biological".  He is also in development on his first feature film, "Rhythms in Raindrops".

                                  IMMAGINATIVE APPROACHES TO EPIC AND CONTEMPORARY STORYTELLING