Assistant Professor
Resident Playwright
Playwriting
Directing
Acting
Office: Waller Hall, Room 206C
E-mail: Jason.Chimonides@iup.edu
Phone: 724-357-4026
Jason holds both a B.A in Theatre and an M.F.A in Directing from Florida State University. He has taught performance, directing, and playwrighting at IUP, Florida State University, Brooklyn College, Pace University, Farleigh Dickenson University, Firespark! Arts Camp as well as the Alliance Theatre Acting Program.
His directing credits include work for The Vital Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Source, Juggernaut Theatre Company, Theatre Jacksonville, The NorthEast Theatre, Florida State University, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and IUP. As an actor, Jason has worked with The Alliance Theatre, Georgia Shakespeare Festival, Horizon Theatre, Theatrical Outfit, Mill Mountain Theatre, Theatre Southeast, and The Southern Shakespeare Festival, among others.
Jason’s original plays: The Optimist, Pathological, The Bluest Water, The Stone Age, Humans: An Elf Story, and You’re Someone Special, were all developed with the assistance of Manhattan Class Company’s Playwright’s Coalition, of which he is a member. His work has been professionally produced by Ground UP Productions in New York City, La Cosa Nostra in Chicago, and Endstation Theatre Company in Amherst, Va.
Workshops and fellowships include the following: Naked Angels, Ars Nova/Underwood Theatre, MCC Playlab, The Boulder Fringe Festival, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), and Florida State University. The Optimist is published internationally by Dramatists Play Service. Screenplay: The Stone Age.
Jason lives in Indiana, Pa., and Brooklyn, N.Y.
Updates to Consider
Projects—Recent Past, Present, and Future
- March–April 2008: Off-Broadway premiere of The Optimist in NYC. Produced by Ground-Up Productions.
- June 2008: Publishing deal for The Optimist struck with premiere play publisher Dramatists Play Service.
- June–July 2008: Regional premiere of The Bluest Water, A Hurricane Camille Story in Amherst, Va. Produced by Endstation Theater Company and the Blue Ridge Summer Theater Festival. The entire run of the play was sold out and will be revised and re-mounted in the summer of 2009.
Current Projects
- Plays: You’re Someone Special to be workshopped/read with MCC Playwrights’ Coalition in 2009.
- Screenplays: Currently writing second draft of The Stone Age; full-length screenplay. Currently outlining another screenplay: MI66.
- Television pitch: The Smartest Guy in the Room, working with producers in Los Angeles
