Eric Ruffin

Eric Ruffin’s most recent regional theatre directing credits include 2-2 Tango at Studio Theatre, A Raisin in the Sun at Crossroads Theatre, Old Settler for The African Continuum Theatre Company, Gutta Beautiful at New Federal Theatre, New Kid for Imagination Stage, and the critically acclaimed New Jersey premiere of Topdog/Underdog for Luna Stage. He has also directed Venus, Passing Strange, and Cut Flowers at the Ira Aldridge Theatre in addition to In The Blood, Antigone, In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, Jesus Hopped the “A” Train and Our Lady of 121st Street for the Rutgers Theatre Company. Other credits include Public Ghosts/Private Stories at the George Street Playhouse, Romeo and Juliet at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, The Piano Lesson for The African Globe, My Children! My Africa! at Luna Stage, Waiting to be Invited for The Black Theatre Troupe, and The Story for the Howard Players. He founded “The Acting Studio” at the Newark School of the Arts, a professional training program for actors, and was the founder and Artistic Director for the Newark Youth Ensemble, Newark, NJ. Additionally he has served as the Artistic Director for The New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Young Writer Workshop and has taught acting and performance theory courses at various schools including Howard University, Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts. Ruffin holds a B.F.A.  in Theatre Arts from Howard University and an MFA in Directing from Rutgers University. He is a Society for Stage Directors and Choreographers Associate, a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect and a 1999 recipient of the New York Drama League Directing Fellowship. He has also been honored with a Shakespeare Theatre Acting Fellowship, and the Princess Grace Grant for Dance.