Amy Woodruff is a Louisiana theatre artist specializing in actor-created interdisciplinary performance. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from McNeese University, and she has received intensive performance training from the world-renowned groups Dah Teatar of Serbia and Odin Teatret of Denmark, and from Shakespeare & Company of Massachusetts and Vortex Repertory Theatre of Austin, Texas. She created Theatre Louisiane in 1999, a New Orleans artists' group that has been the vehicle for many of the provocative, critically-acclaimed performance pieces that she has developed. Her works have been seen at New Orleans spaces such as Zeitgeist Arts Center, the Pickery Art Space, the State Palace Theatre, and the Dramarama festival at the Contemporary Arts Center. She has received artist grants from the Louisiana Division of The Arts and the Jazz & Heritage Foundation of New Orleans, and her works are fiscally sponsored by the NYC independent artists’ service organization Fractured Atlas. She has appeared as a Guest Artist in two multimedia pieces: her stage adaptation of the Lovecraft horror tale The Music of Erich Zann at McNeese University Theatre, and her one-actor project about rejected women, dis+graced, which toured to the St-Ambroise Montréal Fringe Festival in Canada. New Orleans magazine honored Woodruff and her collaborating artists from Theatre Louisiane as "People to Watch" for 2006-07. In April 2008 she appeared in the V-to-the-Tenth workshop piece Women & War, and she is currently performing and developing the original work Moon Cove.

"I was first introduced to the arts through the study of visual art and classical music in my childhood, long before I knew anything about the theatre," Woodruff explains. "So I approach theatre from the perspective of a landscape painter or a musical performer, and as a result my work has elements of visual design and symphonic composition. My work is borne of a less traditional theatre methodology, but for audiences who are more open, it can introduce them to something entirely different ."

Woodruff has become known for projects that fuse traditional realistic theatre, postmodernist performance and movement, and scenographic design (elements such as fabric work and costume, sculpture of mask and props, audio of experimental music/sound/voice, projection of video, still photographic images, light, and color) into fully integrated multi-layered onstage works. Her streamlined, explorational creation process includes the engagement of participating artists’ ideas, and highly controlled, intensive “workshop” rehearsals that span from three months to a year. In her work as a performing artist, she has dealt with original composition, as well as the classics of stage writers such as Sophokles, Aeschylus, Euripides, Moliere, Durang, Genet, Pinter, Marlowe, Fornes, and others. Woodruff is a tenth generation Louisianian of French Acadian ("Cajun") and Native Cherokee Indian descent. She is the first member of her family to graduate from college, and her husband and partner-in-crime is geographer Blake Buchert. In the early 1990s she spent two months in the Republic of Panama working as a photographer’s assistant, and in 2004 she attended the United Nations World Theatre Congress in Tampico, Mexico on a Louisiana Division of The Arts mini-grant.

"As an artist, I'm preoccupied with the human condition, and more recently, with the intimacy of physical contact and spatial relationships." Woodruff continues. "I enjoy juxtaposing the intimate with the epic, and seeing whether it 'works' or not. And I like toying with stillness as an interpretive element."

In 2007 she finally realized a lifelong dream, as she began her study of violin and folk fiddle.

Modeling in Central America, 1993

Reviews and Feature Stories : :

People To Watch for 2006 (Feature) By New Orleans Magazine (2006) HTML

Magazine Spotlights Theatrical Couple (Feature) In Lake Charles American Press (2006) HTML

dis+graced (Review) By Michael Faciejew, Montréal Gazette (2006) HTML

State of Grace (Feature) By Dalt Wonk, Gambit Weekly New Orleans (2006) HTML

Horror Story Sparks McNeese Graduate's Imagination (Feature) By Warren Arceneaux, Lake Charles American Press (2005) HTML

The Music of Erich Zann (Review) By Patrick Shannon III, Ambush Magazine (2005) HTML

The Music of Erich Zann (Feature, Italian) By Andrea Bonazzi, HorrorMagazine (2005) HTML

The Seven (Review) By Dalt Wonk, Gambit Weekly New Orleans (2004) HTML

The Seven (Review) By David Cuthbert, New Orleans Times-Picayune (2004) HTML

BloodReign (Review) By Patrick Shannon III, Ambush Magazine (2003) HTML

Wings of Desire: Portrait of an Underground Producer (Feature) By mikko, Where Y'at Magazine New Orleans (2001) HTML

Laughing Wild (Review) By David Cuthbert, New Orleans Times-Picayune (2001) HTML

Laughing Wild (Review) By Roberts Baston, Southern Voice Magazine (2001) HTML

The Music of Erich Zann (Review) By Dalt Wonk, Gambit Weekly New Orleans (2001) HTML

McNeese's "Faustus" is a Hell of a Show (Review) By Ed Alderman, Lake Charles American Press (1995) HTML

MSU Has Star Turn in "Conduct of Life" (Review) By Ed Alderman, Lake Charles American Press (1993) HTML

amy's selected links ::

THEATRE ART: Louisiana Division of The Arts | Fractured Atlas a national organization for independent artists. | Theatre Without Borders really excellent networking site for international artists. | Zeitgeist Arts Center | St-Ambroise Montréal Fringe Festival | McNeese University Theatre | Dramarama festival | Oxford Archive of Ancient Greek Drama | Didaskalia online journal for modern performances of ancient Greek and Roman Drama. | Costumer's Manifesto a wonderful resource. | Encyclopedia Mythica also a great tool.

LAND: America's Wetland please support the conservation of my south Louisiana home: sign petitions, send donations. | Gulf Coast Turtle and Tortoise Society | Atchafalaya Basin Program | American Forests

HERITAGE: Acadian-Cajun Genealogy & History a top site for great info. | Action Cadienne | NativeWeb a top site for American Indian info/links.

ALSO: National Alliance for The Mentally Ill patient advocacy. | Amnesty International | ZomboCom highly recommended; probably the best site on the entire internet. | thecure.com Oh, yes. Happyhappyjoyjoy.| duranduran.com No, I never got over these guys. | classical.net  Always, since that beat-up FM radio at age 9.... | fiddlehangout.com