Bill as Prometheus in Steelbound by Alison Carey. "When we formed a more perfect union..."
William T. George, Jr.
Little Pond, 92 S. Penn Dixie Rd., Nazareth, PA 18064
kingfish@fast.net, litlpond@fast.net, bill@touchstone.org
home: 610-837-2741 or cell: 610-570-1335
Theatre Artist:
Mr. George is a master theatre artist dedicated to the creation of original theatre and the training of all interested in advancing their creative powers. He is an Ensemble Member and original Founder of Touchstone Theatre, Co-Founder of Little Pond Arts Retreat, and Artistic Director and Founder of Kingfisher Theatre.
Bill received his B.A. in English Literature from Lehigh University and his M.F.A. in Acting/Directing from the Dallas Theatre Centre of Trinity University. He studied mime and abstract playwriting with Paul Curtis of The American Mime Theatre, founded the People’s Theatre Company in 1977 and later co-founded Touchstone Theatre in 1981 where he was Producing Director until 1990. During a hiatus from Touchstone in 1996, Bill created Little Pond Arts Retreat in Nazareth, Pennsylvania with his wife Bridget–a retreat center dedicated to exploring the art of transcendence–and toured to Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, and throughout Canada and the United States with his original dramas: The Kingfisher’s Wing and The Marriage of Munirih Khanum. Bill returned to Touchstone as a full-time Ensemble Member in 2003 where he has won numerous awards over the years–including a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, a Pennsylvania Solo Theatre Arts Fellowship, and the Otto Rene Castillo Award for Political Theatre. He has served as a panelist and adjudicator for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council and the Barrymore Awards of Philadelphia. In his over thirty-year career he has written or co-written more than one hundred original productions for the professional and educational arena–ranging from award-winning three-minute abstract movement pieces (The Arrow, The Gift) to 75-person community-based plays (Don Quixote of Bethlehem). His work has been supported by The Environmental Protection Agency, The Pennsylvania Humanities Council, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, The National Endowment for the Humanities, The Mid-Atlantic Foundation, and the Schubert Foundation, among others.
Education:
*Attended school at the International School of Geneva, Geneva Switzerland; Canadian Academy, Kobe, Japan, and graduated in 1968 from Kennett High School, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.
*Graduated from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature in 1973.
*Graduated from Trinity University’s MFA program at the Dallas Theatre Center in Dallas, Texas in 1976
*Studied with Paul Curtis at the American Mime Theatre in New York, New York from 1977 through 1982.
Artistic Leadership:
*Co-Founded People’s Theatre Company in 1976
*Co-Founded Touchstone Theatre in 1981 (http://www.touchstone.org)
*Co-Founded Little Pond Arts retreat in 1996 (http://www.littlepond.org)
*Founded Kingfisher Theatre in 1997 (http://www.littlepond.org/kingfisher-theatre/)
*Panelist the National Endowment for the Arts Solo Theatre Arts Panel (1990)
*Panelist the Maryland Arts Council Theatre Panel (1991)
*National Endowment for the Arts Site Visitor (1990-2007)
*Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Solo Theatre Fellow,
*Edinburgh Fringe First Award from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland.
*Commission by the Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia, PA
From 1976 through 1990 Mr. George was the Artistic Producing Director of Touchstone Theatre. He then left Touchstone to focus on the particular creative challenge of transcendence in art:
Devising original works: Walden, The Kingfisher’s Wing, The Marriage of Munirih Khanum, the Dragons of Rizvania
Directing: A Dress for Mona, the Seven Valleys, A Perfect English Gentleman, The Young Playwrights Festival, Dragons of Rizvania (Moravian Academy)
Training: Directing the intern program at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival; leading educational residencies–including an ongoing relationship with the Wyoming Valley Montessori School to create a theatre art component to their curriculum; teaching Shakespeare to high school and middle school students as part of touchstone’s participation in the National Endowment Shakespeare in the Community Initiative; leading University workshops (Oberlin College, Lehigh University, Messiah College, Northampton College) in mask, pantomime, improvisation, play-writing, puppetry, abstract theatre; and pioneering training in the creative process in the business community (at Crayola and Martin guitar, Northampton College).
Acting: Captain Cat in Under Milkwood; Tom in Glass Menagerie; Minos, in the collaboration between Touchstone Theatre and Teatro de la Memoria of Santiago, Chile of Deadalus in the Belly of the Beast; Malvolio in Twelfth Night; Prometheus in Steelbound; Phil in Touchstone’s devised work, A Comic Strip; Father in If at All; The Old Guy in Christmas City Follies; and, among those at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival: Launcelot in Merchant of Venice; Guildenstern in Hamlet; Tinker in Midsummer Night’s Dream; Corin in As You Like It; Pinch in Comedy of Errors.
and Producing: While acting as Producing Director at Little Pond, he planned, managed and marketed weekend and week-long workshops with Kevin Locke, (Lakota Flute and Hoop Dancer); Eiko and Koma (Japanese Modern Dance); Mozell Benson (Folk Quilting); Jay O’Callahan (Storytelling); Hong Foo (Painting); Larry Lipkis (Music and the Psalms); Peter Murphy (Poetry); Ardath Rodale (Multi-discipline), Peter Murphy (poetry), Mark Perry (theatre) and many others.
Mr. George returned to work at Touchstone as a member of the Touchstone Ensemble in 2003 where he assists in Development and participates artistically on a project by project basis.
Kingfisher Theatre
Productions Available for Touring
Bill’s Page