Matt Trucano

Director - Writer - Teacher

I cut my teeth directing plays and musicals in Chicago, where, in 2007, I co-founded The Bricklayers, an ensemble company whose productions included Twelfth Night: Galaxy 4.2, Mother Courage and Her Children (both co-productions with Collectif Masque, Paris), Don Juan in Vegas (Midwest Small-and-Large-Town Tour), and Ship of Fools (a production of Interact Center for the Visual and Performing arts in Minneapolis, featuring 50 actors with diverse abilities). 

A trained singer and pianist, I began directing musicals in high school, and operas in the music department of St. Olaf College when I was an undergraduate student there. My lyric theater credits include: Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, HMS Pinafore, The Last Five Years, The Old Maid and the Thief, Pump Boys and Dinettes, and original late-night cabaret pieces related to Bricklayers MainStage productions, including Malvolio's Singles-Only Good Time Cabaret, and The Chaplain's Midnight Vigil.

I am a master teacher of l'essential mask technique, developed by Mario Gonzalez (original member, Theatre du Soleil), and passed to me over a period of eight years by Mario and his proteges, Mariana Araoz and Christophe Patty. l'Essential is core curriculum for first-year students in the national conservatories in France, where I learned its pedagogy. I have since taught it in Chicago, Minneapolis, New York City, Indianapolis, as well as in Dusseldorf and Dresden, Germany. The Bricklayers' productions were all made using masks and the l'essential technique; additional directing credits in mask include: The School for Wives, Tartuffe, Scapin, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and original pieces Bob's Wash-Dry-Fold and Le Nozze di Arlecchino.

In May of 2017 I graduated from Columbia University with an MFA in Directing under faculty members Anne Bogart, Brian Kulick, and Gregory Mosher. Full productions at Columbia include Camino Real and The Cherry Orchard  new plays The Glass Piano and Order and Law by Alix Sobler and The Wedding Party and Trail's End by Ellen Steves. While at Columbia, I assisted Anne Bogart, Lee Breuer, Jack O'Brien, and Tazewell Thompson.