Biography

Catherine Weidner is a teacher, director and actor. Recent professional credits include roles in Little Women, Third and Other Desert Cities at the Hangar Theatre, as well as directing Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, As You Like It. and Two Gentlemen of Verona for Theatre at Monmouth in Maine. Other professional credits include: directing an adaptation of Henry V for Austin Shakespeare, Jane Austen’s Emma for Nebraska Repertory Theatre; Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, and Merry Wives of Windsor for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival; and Or, at Caffeine Theatre in Chicago. Prior to 2013, she worked at The Kennedy Center in A Streetcar Named Desire with Patricia Clarkson, Amy Ryan and Noah Emmerich, directed by Tony-Award-winner Garry Hynes; at Center Stage in Baltimore in Blithe Spirit, and Mary Stuart; and at Arena Stage in Washington, DC in The Heidi Chronicles, directed by Tazewell Thompson. She has worked at The Guthrie Theater, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, the La Jolla Playhouse, and with Bread & Puppet. She holds a BFA in Acting from Ithaca College and an MFA in Directing from the University of Minnesota, and has also trained at Complicite in London, The Second City in Chicago and The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. For ten years she was the Program Director of The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting at the George Washington University, offering a one-year MFA in Classical Acting. From 2007- 2013 she taught Classical Acting and Heightened Text at The Theatre School at DePaul University, where she served as Head of BFA Acting. For Ithaca College Theatre, she has directed Caesar, Twelfth Night, Cabaret, Company, and As You Like It, and taught Audition Techniques, Acting I, Freshmen Scene Study, Sophomore Scene Study, Sophomore Voice & Speech, Styles of Acting I: The Greeks & Shakespeare, Introduction to Theatre, Directing I, and Special Topics: Shakespeare Intensive. She served at Chair of Theatre Arts from 2013-2021, and as the Interim Director of the Ithaca College London Center in 2021-22. She is a member of Equity, SAG-AFTRA, and has been certified as a Consent-Forward Artist by Intimacy Directors and Coordinators.