About

Zackary Ross is a theatre artist, educator, and academic administrator based in Louisville, Kentucky. His work moves between the rehearsal room and the classroom, with directing at the center of his artistic practice.

Zack is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Bellarmine University, where he also serves as Director of the Honors Program. As an educator, he teaches courses in Shakespera, directing, theatre history, script analysis, research methods, and stage combat, as well as interdisciplinary courses in the Honors Program. His teaching encourages students to understand theatre not simply as something to be performed, but as a way of investigating people, history, culture, and the world around them.

As a director, Zack is drawn to plays that create strong theatrical worlds while asking complicated questions about identity, community, memory, and belonging. Recent productions include She Kills Monsters, Eurydice, and Romeo & Juliet at Bellarmine University, as well as Dracula and Puffs: Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic at Clarksville Little Theatre. His theatre work also includes acting, dramaturgy, scenic and sound design, stage combat, and fight choreography.

Zack's scholarship and teaching are closely connected to his artistic practice. He holds a Ph.D. in Theatre with a Graduate Minor in Film Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an M.A. in Educational Theatre from New York University, and a B.A. in Theatre from Lewis & Clark College. Across the different parts of his work, he remains interested in the same fundamental questions: How do we tell stories well? How do the choices artists make shape the way audiences understand those stories? And how can theatre create spaces where people encounter ideas, experiences, and perspectives beyond their own?

Whether directing a production, teaching a class, mentoring a student, or developing an academic program, Zack approaches the work with curiosity, collaboration, and a belief that the most interesting work happens when people are willing to take ideas seriously without taking themselves too seriously.