GISELA CARDENAS Director

• HOME
• PHOTOS
• UPCOMING PROJECTS
• BIO & RESUME
• PRESS
• CONTACT
• LINKS
• COLLABORATORS

Gisela Cardenas

Peruvian Theater Director living in New York City. Gisela is interested in working with classics and adaptations of mythological material from a contemporary perspective. She has a B.A in Anthropology from Universidad Catolica in Peru, an M.A in Performance Studies from New York University and an M.F.A in Directing from Columbia University. Before becoming a director Mrs. Cardenas worked as a professional actress of Film, Theater and T.V in her former country and has trained professional actors in Chile, Brazil and Peru.

In 2001 Gisela was invited by Arianne Mnouchkine and the Theatre Du Soleil to attend a workshop in Paris. Her New York credits include an adaptation of Marguerite Yourcenar's “Fires” for the Women's Center Stage Project, a free version of Ionesco's “The Killer”, Chekhov's “The Cherry Orchard”, Euripides' “Iphigenia at Aulis”, Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” at the Riverside Church Theater, and Federico Garcia Lorca's “Don Perlimplin” for Repertorio Espanol as part of the Van Lier Fellowships for New Directors.

As assistant director, Gisela worked for Anne Bogart and the SITI Company in their production of “Midsummer Night's Dream” at San Jose Repertory Theater in California, The American Repertory Theater in Charles Mee’s “Snow in June”, for the New York premiere of Caryl Churchill's “A Number” directed by James MacDonald at the New York Theater Workshop were she was the Directing Fellow from 2004 until 2006 and for Jeff Whitty's "The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland directed by Bill Rauch.

As instructor, Ms. Cardenas has taught at New York Stage and Film "Powerhouse" at Vassar Collge, Fontys Hogeschool/ Academie Voor Drama in the Netherlands, Colgate University and is a current lecturer at Columbia University in the city of New York.

As a Director in Residence at The Vortex Theater Company she has directed in 2005 a revival of her adaptation of Yourcenar’s “Fires”, a version of Aeschylus “Agamemnon” which gave her a “Drama Desk Nomination for Directing in 2006”, and “In Delirium” adapted from Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther”.

In 2007 Gisela worked on "Ajax, A furious study on humanity" a project that started at Classic Stage Company Summer Lab, continued as part of Target Margin Theater Hellenic Lab and will go up in 2008. In 2007 Ms. Cardenas directed Brecht's "Drums in the Night" for Colgate University and "Antigone" a one woman show adapted from Sophocles by Jose Watanabe and that Premiered at the "Sibiu International Theater Festival" in Romania this past June and the New York Revival of Kander & Ebb's “Kiss of The Spider Woman” for the Vortex Theater Company.

Upcoming projects include: Odon Von Horvath's "Figaro gets a Divorce" at INTAR in 2009, Sophocles 'Ajax, and Part 1 of "An Oresteia" for Classic Stage Company 2009 Season that will co-direct with CSC Artistic Director Brian Kulick.

Ms. Cardenas was the 2007 Princes Grace Theater Fellowship recipient, the current Phil Killian Directing Fellow at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland and has been recently invited to be part of the Women's Project Lab as Director for the 2008-2010 cycle.