Ken Rus Schmoll

Playwrights Horizons: world premiere of Iowa by Jenny Schwartz and Todd Almond. He directed Anne Washburn’s The Internationalist for both 13P and the Vineyard Theatre and her one-act October/November for Ensemble Studio Theater’s 2008 Marathon. Recent credits include Max Posner’s Judy for Page 73, Kate E. Ryan’s Card and Gift for Clubbed Thumb and Ayad Akhtar’s The Invisible Hand at New York Theatre Workshop (Lucille Lortel nomination). Previous work includes The Grown-Up, Death Tax (Humana Festival); George Brant’s Grounded (Walkerspace); Not What Happened (BAM Next Wave); Red Dog Howls (NYTW); Luther, Telethon, Amazons and Their Men, Demon Baby (Clubbed Thumb); A Map of Virtue, Mark Smith, Aphrodisiac (13P); Telephone (Foundry Theatre); Middletown(Vineyard Theatre); What Once We Felt (LCT3); Hello Failure (PS 122); and Cause for Alarm (NY Fringe Festival). Ken is a usual suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb, a three-time Sundance Theatre Institute alum, co-chair of the Soho Rep. Writer/Director Lab, co-mentor of the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship and the recipient of two Obie Awards.

• “‘Iowa’ is never predictable — and its strangeness is purposeful, offering a real warning about the surreal world around us.”

  — Miriam Felton-Dansky, Village Voice | Read Full Article

• “★★★★ Critic's Pick! Iowa’s satirical cartoonishness is captured splendidly in Ken Rus Schmoll’s staging, and the cast of eight sustains a remarkable tone of committed absurdism.”

  — Adam Feldman, Time Out New York | Read Full Article