Jeff Zinn (A.R.T. Institute class of 1990, Directing) has been active in the performing arts as musician, actor, director and producer for over thirty years. A graduate of Franconia College in New Hampshire where he majored in theater and dance, he made his off-Broadway debut as Danny in David Mamet's Sexual Perversity In Chicago; performed as a member of the Boston-based improvisational troupe The Proposition; and appeared on Broadway with Derek Jacobi in The Suicide. He earned a Masters in Theater Education from NYU in 1978 and turned to directing full-time in 1983. In the next few years he developed new plays at Ensemble Studio Theatre, The White Barn Theatre, The West Bank Cafe, Theater for the New City, and as a member of the Circle Repertory Company Lab.
In 1988 he joined the directing program at the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, under the leadership of Robert Brustein. That year he also became Co-Artistic Director of Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT). During the next two years, while taking a wide range of courses at Harvard (including filmmaking) he assisted directors Andrei Serban and Liviu Ciulei, co-directed Eric Bogosian's new play, Suburbia, and directed many of his own projects including the premier of a new play by Thomas Babe and an ambitious production of Ionesco's The Killer. He completed the A.R.T. Institute program in 1990 and moved to Wellfleet in order to continue building Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. In 1995 he became WHAT's Producing Artistic Director.
Now in its twenty first season, WHAT has grown to be a nationally recognized Equity company presenting innovative new American plays for a diverse and appreciative regional audience. He has produced and/or directed more than 100 WHAT productions. Under his leadership WHAT has been awarded two prestigious Eliot Norton Awards including one in 2001 for "Establishing a Beachhead for Serious Theatre on Cape Cod." He produced the Boston transfer of Gip Hoppe's A New War, which won WHAT's second Norton Award for Best Visiting Production by a Small Company. In 2004 Boston Magazine chose WHAT as Best Theater in its annual Best of Boston issue. Among productions he has directed, The Beauty Queen of Leenane (starring Julie Harris), Closer by Patrick Marber, and Proof by David Auburn were named by the Boston Globe, in their respective years, as among the Top Ten theater productions.
He has guest directed at the Nora Theatre Company and the New Repertory Theatre, and taught acting, dramaturgy and theater literature at Wheaton College, Clark College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute where he currently holds the post of Visiting Academic Professional.
He lives in Wellfleet with his wife, Crystal, and children, Georgia and Noah.
