“Her [Truscott’s] performance and writing are astonishingly vivid.”
~NYC Show Business Weekly
Cristal Chanelle Truscott, PhD (Artistic Director/Playwright) is an artist, scholar, educator, dialogue facilitator and founder of Progress Theatre (PT). She is a graduate of the High School for the Performing & Visual Arts (Houston, TX), holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre with a minor in Africana Studies from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she studied at the Experimental Theatre Wing. She completed her Master of Arts and Doctoral degrees from NYU’s Department of Performance Studies with a research focus on representations of spiritual diversity in African American Theatre before 1950. As a playwright, Cristal blends academic and pop-culture conversations to examine the concerns and struggles of our times. Her premiere play PEACHES is published in the anthology Plays from the Boom Box Galaxy: Theatre from the Hip Hop Generation by Theatre Communications Group. In addition to her PT plays PEACHES, ‘MEMBUH, and The Burnin’ , Cristal also co-wrote Notice Me, presented at NYC’s Fringe Theater Festival. Most recently, she’s received the 2023 United States Artist Award, Creative Capital Award, National Theatre Project Grant, Map Fund and Idea Fund grants to support her current project in development with PT, a site-specific musical: Plantation Remix. Her artistic work has also garnered recognition and grants from the likes of the Ford Foundation, Theatre Communications Group, National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts and the National Performance Network’s Creation Fund Grant. She is a recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Artist Award, which honors artists who are influential in the shaping of powerful creative movements in contemporary dance, jazz, theatre and related multidisciplinary work.
As a scholar, Cristal has served as Assistant Editor of the performance journal, TDR: The Drama Review; Associate Editor for Azizah Magazine; and on the editorial boards of the publications Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory and Black Masks Magazine: Theater and Entertainment. She served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Network of Ensemble Theaters, where she helped facilitate dialogues in the service of the organization’s mission to advance ensemble theatre practice and participate in positive social change through the transformative power of collaborative theatre. Cristal also leads a series of workshops entitled “Enter Faith” to engage and promote multi-faith dialogues, and inclusive faith-based artistic and community events. She has served as a consultant and advisor to various universities and organizations including The Boniuk Institute at Rice University, The Doris Duke Foundation’s Building Bridges Program, IMAN, Guild of Future Architects and has been an invited artist participant in groundbreaking national and international conferences such as “Future Aesthetics: Hip Hop and Contemporary Performance” funded by the Ford Foundation and “Diversity Dialogues,” lead by the US Embassy to the Netherlands and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund.
As an educator, Cristal is Associate Professor of Performance Studies and Graduate Acting at Northwestern University. She previously served as Theatre Program Director and Department Head of Music & Theatre at Prairie View A&M University; and has been a professor, lecturer and speaker at various universities and arts programs including University of North CarolinaIndiana University, San Francisco State University, University of Houston, Spelman College, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia University,Wits University in South Africa, and Albeda College, DOX Theater Group and Theatre RAST in The Netherlands. Cristal has been teaching and training artists using her acting and theatre-making methodology and pedagogy, SoulWork, in master classes, workshops and courses in university, professional, arts-based and international settings for nearly 20 years, offering this technique as a timely, necessary and useful tool for artists and ensembles creating their own work and for those seeking to dynamically, creatively engage and mount the work of fellow artists.
Cristal is passionate about contributing to the development of new artists, new aesthetics and diverse audiences for the next generation of American theatre, striving ultimately to be of assistance and service to efforts toward peace, healing, freedom and progress for all.
Read Cristal’s PT Ensemble Blogs & Interviews:
- “Living In The Call & Response” (Asheville)
- “Community-Artist Partnerships” with Linda Paris-Bailey and Joe Tolbert of Carpetbag Theater
- “Good Theatre Got Soul: Exploring the SoulWork Method” interview for Continuum Journal
More Ensemble Bios: Daniel – Derrick – Rebekah – Tanya – Tiana