Biography
Cliff Odle is a playwright, actor and director. He is a native of New Jersey and based in New England. He has been involved with theatre around the country. His plays have been performed in Boston, New York, San Diego and other areas.
Lost Tempo was produced by Boston Playwrights Theatre and helped to inaugurate the theatre’s redesigned space. Lost Tempo was also a part of the 2016 Boston Theatre Marathon Warm-Up Laps. Our Girl in Trenton has been produced by the BU New Play Initiative Workshop. Running the Bulls was featured in the SlamBoston festival and has been produced by his company, New Urban Theatre Lab; The Ahern Fox was a finalist in the 2007 Kennedy Center Theatre Festival; The Delicate Art of Customer Service has been produced by New Urban Theatre Lab and was produced for the Jersey Voices Annual Theatre Festival; He has been a resident playwright for the educational theatre group Theatre Espresso where he co-wrote their play about the 1957 Little Rock desegregation case called The Nine: Crisis in Little Rock. Cliff has also written plays about cyber-bullying, The Lesson and Think Twice which are currently in rep with Deana’s Educational Theatre.
He is the playwriting lecturer at Bates College and also teaches courses in Theatre and Africana Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He has also taught at Wheelock College, Emerson and at the Sondra Feinstein Gamm Theatre Studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
As an actor he has worked for Bridge Repertory Theatre (Salome), New Repertory Theatre (BALTIMORE - with Boston Universities B-CAP program, RACE, Passing Strange), The Huntington Theatre Company (Brendan, King Hedley II), Up You Mighty Race (Fences), Company One (The Good Negro, Last Days of Judas Iscariot, 103: Within The Veil), Wheelock Family Theatre (Saint Joan, Oliver, Taste of Sunrise, Pippi, Trumpet of the Swan), The Sondra Feinstein Gamm Theatre (King Elizabeth, The Scarlet Letter, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Don Carlos) and a variety of other theatres in New York and San Diego. He can also be seen as a background artist in the movies Fever Pitch and What’s the Worst that can Happen? and played a state trooper in an episode of Brotherhood (Showtime).
His directing work includes plays such as Yellowface, The Colored Museum, The Diary of Anne Frank, Amadeus, Agnes of God, and The Chairs. He has directed The Cook for the UMASS Performing Arts Department. He has also directed the first UMASS Playwright’s Festival and served as a mentor/dramaturg for the second.
He was a co-founder of New Urban Theater Laboratory. He is also founder of Jersey Voices, a one act play festival which is now in its 24thyear producing the work of New Jersey playwrights.
EDUCATION
Boston University: MFA (2009) Creative Writing: Playwriting program w/ Derek Walcott and Kate Snodgrass
Catawba College: BA (1990): Communications, Minor: Theatre
HB Studios (1992) Scene Study, Shakespeare, Chekhov
Acting Coach, Joe Ross: (1990 – 1991) Scene Study, Monologues, Shakespeare, Improv
American Academy of Dramatic Arts (NY): (1985 – 86) Weekend Intensive