Curt Tofteland

Curt L. Tofteland brings thirty-one years of professional theatre experience to his roles of artistic director, producer, director, Equity actor, award-winning playwright, academic educator, professional development trainer, and drama artist-in-residence. From 1989 to 2008, Tofteland was the producing artistic director of Kentucky Shakespeare Festival. As a director and an Equity actor, he has more than 200 professional productions to his credit. Additionally, he has presented more than 400 performances of his one man show Shakespeare’s Clownes: A Foole’s Guide to Shakespeare. Tofteland is the founder and artistic director of the internationally acclaimed Shakespeare Behind Bars program. Philomath Films chronicled Shakespeare Behind Bars in a documentary that premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and more than 40 film festivals around the world, winning a total of 11 film awards. He has worked as an artist-in-residence conducting developmentally appropriate workshops for kindergarten through twelfth grade students for the Kentucky Arts Council, Very Special Arts Kentucky, and Jefferson County Public Schools. Toftelandt is a published poet and essayist. His latest essay appears in the new
Sourcebooks Shakespeare edition of The Tempest. He has two more essays in forthcoming books: an essay about the relationship between a volunteer prison arts program and the warden of the correctional institution (“The Keeper of the Keys”) to be included in a book titled Inmates, Artists, and Others: Reflections on Prison Theatre in the United States and an essay about Shakespeare’s characters co-authored with inmate and SBB participant Hal Cobb (“Prospero Behind Bars: Redemption, Forgiveness, and Transformation”) to be published in a book titled Shakespeare’s Sense of Character: From the Stage and on the Page. He was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters from Bellarmine University, the Fleur-de-lis Award from the Louisville Forum, Petra Foundation Fellowship, Al Smith Fellowship in playwriting from the Kentucky Arts Council, the Mildred A. Dougherty Award for communication from the Greater Louisville English Council, and a Distinguished Theatre Alumni Award from the University of Minnesota, where he received his M.F.A. in acting.

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