This academic year Wesley Young, Associate Professor, teacher, director, actor, will celebrate 10 years as a member of the RU Theatre and Cinema faculty. As part of this outstanding group he enjoys teaching directing, acting, voice, and mentoring aspiring theatre artists. Among the shows he has directed at RU: Medea, Pippin, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, featuring Sally Struthers, Fifth of July (also with Ms. Struthers), The Lion in Winter with Bridget Hanley, and the very popular The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas starring Broadway veteran Susann Fletcher-Smith. Young has appeared on the RU stage himself in his all-time favorite role as Irish wit and dramatist Oscar Wilde in Diversions and Delights which he also produced and directed, and Morris Lacey in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. He has worked extensively with RU’s music and dance programs-- coaching students, directing RU’s musical theatre productions, working with student and faculty choreographers and even collaborating on original music for last April’s production of Medea. With RU Ballet Theatre he has been seen as Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker. Wesley has acted locally at Mill Mountain Theatre in Big River and Into the Woods and continues, when possible, to portray Oscar Wilde, most recently having presented Diversions and Delights at the invitation of Hollins University this past February.

Recent professional directing credits include Sylvia, this summer at Kentucky Repertory Theatre, Driving Miss Daisy, Mill Mountain Theatre. Others: Rounding Third, Barefoot in the Park, The Nerd, and The Diary of Anne Frank.

Wesley has served as voice, text and dialect coach on several productions here at RU as well as for a national tour of Rent. He was also a guest respondent for the Summer Musical Theatre Conservatory at UCLA taught by renowned musical theatre and television performer Karen Morrow.

He is a founding member of Public Theatre of Kentucky, in his hometown of Bowling Green, Kentucky. As an actor he has been seen on stages from the Northeast to California –MacHaydn Theatre, Horse Cave Theatre, Tennessee Stage Company, Smoky Mountain Shakespeare, and Nebraska Theatre Caravan, to name a few. He is particularly proud of having played Prior Walter in the Alabama premiere of Angels in America.

Memberships/affiliations: Virginia Theatre Association (Vice President and State SETC Auditions Coordinator), Actors’ Equity Association, Southeastern Theatre Conference, Voice and Speech Trainers Association and Theatre Communications Group. MFA, Acting, ’99, The University of Alabama.