Josh Chenard hails from Portland, Maine and has recently rejoined the faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University (ranked the #1 public university arts & design program in the country by U.S. News & World Report) from Las Cruces, New Mexico where he served as the Head of Acting at New Mexico State University. A sought after Guest and Teaching, Josh has led workshops and classes all over the country including at the University of California, Berea College, the University of Southern Maine, Indiana University, SOL Acting Academy, Richmond Shakespeare, Bates College, SPARC, Midwestern State University, TheatreLAB, the American College Theatre Festival, the Virginia Theatre Association, the Southeastern Theatre Conference, and overseas at Queen Mary University in London, England. As an actor and director, Josh has worked in a variety of educational, professional, and regional venues including at Two Lights Theatre Ensemble and Portland Stage in Portland, Maine, Acadia Repertory Theatre Company in Bar Harbor, Maine, the AYTB Theatre Company in Boston, Massachusetts, Richmond Triangle Players and Richmond Shakespeare in Richmond, Virginia, the Michael Chekhov Connection in Los Angeles, California, the No Strings Theatre Company in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the University of Southern Maine where he appeared in the American Premiere of Xavier Durringer’s A Taste of the Killing on the Tip of the Tongue and has worked with theater luminaries such as Olympia Dukakis and Mark Medoff, and with such notables as New York Times Best Selling Author Rebecca Goldstein and International film actress and author Emmanuelle Chaulet, who directed Josh as Adam in the original and critically acclaimed Rest Stop at Oak Street Theater in Portland, Maine. Recent Directing credits include The Trip to Bountiful and Les Precieuses Ridicules at Virginia Commonwealth University, Our Town, Other Desert Cities, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, James and the Giant Peach and The Misanthrope at The American Southwest Theatre Company, the Chicago Premiere of Peter Pan: The Boy Who Hated Mothers at the Athenaeum Theater, the Virginia Premiere of Lord of the Flies for the Henley Street Theatre Company, and an exploration of the Costa Rican folk tale La Segua with Shawn Elliott (Broadway’s City of Angels) and Tiffany Rachelle Stewart (Broadway’s Curious Incident) at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab in New York.
MFA Theatre Pedagogy (Acting & Directing emphasis), Virginia Commonwealth University; BA Theatre (Performance emphasis), University of Southern Maine.
