John Blondell, Ph.D.

John Blondell is Professor of Theatre Arts, Global Ambassador for the Performing Arts, and Co-Chair of the Theatre Arts Department at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California; Founding Artistic Director of the Lit Moon Theatre Company and its international extension Lit Moon World; Director of the Lit Moon World Theater Festivals; and Co-founder of the Verona Shakespeare Fringe Festival.  To date, John has directed over 100 productions in the US, Europe, and Eurasia. Recent directing credits include Eurydice for the Gabriel Sundukyan National Academic Drama Theatre in Yerevan, Armenia; Pirej for Lit Moon World in Belche, Macedonia; so now i have confessed for the Verona Shakespeare Fringe Festival; Uncle Vanya for Lit Moon, and Diamond to Dust:  A Flying A Fantasy for Westmont.  His Lit Moon productions have been seen in Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Canada, Scotland, China, Armenia, Georgia, Italy, and on the Network.  International credits include productions for the Tampereen Teatteri in Tampere, Finland; the Bitola (Macedonia) National Theatre (four occasions); the National Theatre of Tirana (Albania); the Russian Drama Theatre of Karaganda Named After Stanislavsky in Karaganda, Kazakhstan; and the aforesaid Sundukyan in Yerevan.  

John’s Bitola National Theatre production of Henry VI Part 3 was featured at the 2012 Globe to Globe Festival, presented by Shakespeare’s Globe London, and his Westmont College Production of The Pirates of Penzance received three national awards, including “Distinguished Production of a Musical,” and “Distinguished Director of a Musical,” from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.  John is the recipient of 13 Independent Theatre Awards for excellence in Directing, the 2003 Faculty Research Award from Westmont College, and in 2013 was named Teacher of the Year in the Humanities at Westmont. In 2009, the Santa Barbara Independent named John a “Local Hero” for his “tireless devotion” to the international theatre community.  In the summer and fall of 2023, John will direct Uncle Vanya for Lit Moon; the Macedonian novel Pirej in and around Bitola, North Macedonia; Richard III for Prague Shakespeare; Hamlet for the Compania de Teatru Aradi Kamaraszinhaz in Arad, Romania; and The Three Sisters for the Russian Drama Theatre of Karaganda Named After Stanislavsky in Karaganda, Kazakhstan.  John also helped curate the 2023 Verona Shakespeare Fringe Festival, which he co-founded in 2021.  He will return to Westmont in the spring of 2024 with a production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet at the Community Arts Workshop in Downtown Santa Barbara.