Austene Van

Executive Artistic Director

Austene has been a local and national theater professional for 30 years, acclaimed as a gifted, "quietly powerful" and "innovative" actor, director and choreographer. Inextricably woven into her artistic aesthetic is her deep passion to advocate for social justice, equity, and equality, which is why Austene also enjoys her roles as an educator, administrator and community builder through varied disciplines of theater. Austene was a 2013-2014 McKnight Fellowship Award winner, an IVEY Award recipient for the Guthrie Theater's Trouble in Mind and a Woodie Award nominee for Best Actor and Best Supporting actor for her multiple roles in both Spunk and Colored Museum at the St. Louis Black Rep. She directed Annie at the Ordway Music Theater, which was awarded Best Play in City Pages Best of 2018. 

Other stage credits include Familiar, Disgraced, Trouble in Mind, Amen Corner, Gem of the Ocean, Crowns and A Christmas Carol (Guthrie Theater); Disgraced (McCarter/Milwaukee Repertory Theater); Wedding Band, The Owl Answers, Detroit '67, Spunk, Amen Corner, Blue, Ain't Misbehavin', Dinah Was, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Zooman and the Sign, Seven Guitars and Lost in The Stars (Penumbra Theatre); the title role in Aida (Theater Latte Da at the Pantages); Radio Golf (IRT/Cleveland Playhouse); Blanche Dubois in A Street Car Named Desire, Henry IV and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (Ten Thousand Things Theater); In The Next Room (Jungle Theater); Might As Well Be Dead and To Kill a Mockingbird (Park Square Theatre); Shrek the Musical, Once on this Island, Two African Tales, A Very Old Man and Not Without Laughter (Children’s Theater Company); A Christmas Story, Singing in the Rain and Dinah Was (Ordway Music Theater); Hair (Chanhassen Dinner Theatres); Vices, Two Queens One Castle, Dance on Widows Row and Point of Review (Mixed Blood Theatre).

Austene's directing credits include Skeleton Crew and The Royale (Yellow Tree Theatre); Hot Mikado (Skylight Music Theatre); Intimate Apparel (Ten Thousand Things Theater); Blues in the Night (Ordway – McKnight Theater); Gee's Bend, Hot Chocolate and Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill (Park Square Theatre); Black Nativity 2006-2008 (Penumbra Theatre); Lonely Soldier Monologues and A Civil War Christmas (History Theatre); Ain't Misbehavin' (Capri Theatre); Six Degrees of Separation (Theatre in the Round); Joan and Voices in the Fire (Guthrie Theater Experience at the Rarig).