Jerrell L. Henderson
Director
Jerrell L. Henderson (he/him) is a Theatre Director and Puppeteer. He is the League of Chicago Theatres recipient of the 2022 Samuel G. Roberson Jr. Resident Fellowship. He will be creating an original shadow play with Free Street Theater titled, AmericanMYTH: Crossroads. Recent directing credits include Mlima's Tale with Griffin Theatre (Jeff Award Nomination for Direction and Best Play) and Thurgood with Walnut Street Theatre. Other credits include The River with BoHo Theatre, and Untitled with Inis Nua (Barrymore Award nomination for Outstanding Direction of a Play). His latest spectacle creation Ancestral Procession was featured in this year’s International Physical Theatre Festival at Nichols Park on Chicago’s South Side. Recent puppet films include a short film version of his signature puppetry piece I Am The Bear with the Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival. He performed I Am The Bear live with ChiPuppets’ Living Room Tours during the Winter 2022 Chicago International Puppet Festival. Other Puppet Short Films include Hamlin: La Revue Sombre with Handmade Puppet Dreams and Diamond's Dream with Chicago Children's Theatre. His Juneteenth Puppet Protest: The Welcome Table was featured in the New York Times (June 2020) and his Fall 2020 puppetry celebration of the lives of John Lewis and C.T. Vivian titled Black Butterfly was later expanded into an educational performance piece with Tria Smith of Guild Row and a student collective working with Urban Growers Collective also on Chicago’s South Side. His shadow play, 3 American Myths: A Riff in Shadow & Light in 3 Rhythmic Movements was a finalist for a 2019 Jim Henson Foundation Grant. As an assistant director, Jerrell has worked with The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, and Lookingglass Theatre. He received an MFA in Directing from Northwestern University, is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab (2012), an Artistic Associate of Black Lives, Black Words, and was a Henson Foundation sponsored participant at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Puppetry Conference (2020). Most recently, Jerrell serves as the creator and curator of black_theatre_vinyl_archive on Instagram. black_theatre_vinyl_archive is an extensive online archive of African/Afro-European/African American theatre and musical theatre history.