Jackie Apodaca

Jackie Apodaca is the artistic director of Ashland New plays Festival. A Professor of Theatre and the Head of Performance at Southern Oregon University, Jackie has worked as an actor, director, and producer in theatre, film, and media, with companies such as Roundabout Theatre Company, Denver Center Theatre Company, National Geographic, Modern Media (Head of Production), Venice Theatre Works (Associate Artistic Director), and Shakespeare Santa Barbara (Producing Director). Jackie is the author of the book Answers from the Working Actor (published by Routledge) and spent more than a decade at Backstage Newspaper, where she was a Contributing Editor.

She earned her MFA from the National Theatre Conservatory at the Denver Center Theatre Company and her BFA from UC Santa Barbara.

Locally, she has directed numerous productions for SOU, including The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertold Brecht, Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen, Marisol by Jose Rivera, Small Mouth Sounds by Bess Wohl, Seagull by Anton Chekhov, She Kills Monsters by Qi Nguyen, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (opening November 2022).

Jackie joined ANPF in 2016 as associate artistic director, regularly acting for the company, as well as directing the world premiere of Octavio Solis’ Lonesomes, and readings of The Night Climber, Go. Please. Go., Constellations, and The Bottle Tree.