Bio

“A rising star among directors.” 

Ron Rosenbaum, New York Observer

About Dr. Jan Powell

Dr. Jan Powell has been coaching public speakers of all kinds for over twenty years. She specializes in organizational communications, team presentations, keynote speeches, transitional leadership imaging, and crisis management. Employing a flexible, highly customized approach to enhance each client’s unique strengths, Jan has worked with such diverse organizations as the Oregon Health Sciences University, MODA Health, Gard Communications, Standard Insurance, Oregon Medical Association, Oregon Dental Association, WPI Western Partitions Inc., Literary Arts, Northwest Opera Center, Oregon Book Awards, Portland Area Theatre Association, Original Practice Shakespeare Festival, Oracle Theatre, English Speaking Union, Northwest Business Committee for the Arts, ArtsPlan2000, Reed College, University of Oregon, many colleges and universities, and a wide range of individuals in corporate administration, nonprofits, advertising, politics, ministry, education, science, construction, and the performing arts.

Jan is also a theatre professional, working for over thirty years as a director, administrator, coach and performer in places all over the world including London, Amsterdam, Tromsø, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and regional theatres throughout the United States. She was most recently the Producing Artistic Director of the Richmond Shakespeare Festival/Quill Theatre in Richmond, Virginia; prior to that, she was the Artistic Director of the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, and the Founding Artistic Director of Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company, resident in the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. She is a past president of the international Shakespeare Theatre Association.

Her education includes academic degrees from Reed College (Masters in Liberal Studies with an emphasis in theatrical text interpretation), and University of Oregon (BA and PhD in Theatre Arts), and professional training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, the Lee Strasberg Institute in Los Angeles, and Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Massachusetts.

She has coached performing arts students to acceptance in programs at Yale, NYU, Harvard-Moscow Art Theatre, Brown, Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Carnegie-Mellon, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, University of Washington Performing Arts Theatre Program, Boston Conservatory, University of the Arts, University of Houston, Cornish, Webster, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Cal Arts, American Musical and Dramatic Academy, and others.