AUSTIN MICHAEL RUSSELL (Director)

Austin Michael Russell (he/him) is a Director, Actor, Writer, Fight Choreographer and Intimacy Coordinator — as well as an alum of the University of Memphis Dept. of Theatre and Dance. He has performed all around the United States professionally singing and dancing on stages ranging from Touring Broadway houses with the likes of Broadway’s Kyle Dean Massey, to a cafegymnatorium in a elementary school in Gilette, WY. As an award-wining actor — he loves walking the line of ingenue and character actor; with some of his favorite roles being Chris Bean in THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG, Orin Scrivello, DDS in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, and Jim Hardy in HOLIDAY INN here at the Harmony! His directorial style is collaborative, intimate, and brutalist, bringing a sense of raw, fireside-esque storytelling to the stage. He is drawn to small stories about big ideas - and big stories about small communities (as a proud Southerner, he loves seeing his Delta heart captured in his work). This will be his second full season with the Harmony — and he is thrilled to direct BOEING BOEING, FROG AND TOAD, ANYTHING GOES, and CAMELOT.  Playwrighting of his has been featured at Universities all over the Eastern United States, at Virginia Commonwealth University, The University of Memphis, and Union College, and hopefully, soon, here on the Harmony Stage! 

He would like to dedicate his work here to his real brother, MB; to his chosen brother, Noah Johnson; and to the Oxford comma, for making this bio readable. —— @austinmichael.acts