With more than 30 years of experience as a theatre maker, Todd Ristau is passionate about lifting up voices and helping playwrights turn ideas into stories and stories into plays. He is a distinguished graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and his own work has been produced in theatres ranging from church basements to London's West End. At Iowa he created No Shame Theatre in the back of his pickup truck and opened the first "franchise" in New York's HOME for Contemporary Theatre and Art during his internship in the their literary office. Bob Moss of Playwrights Horizons once called No Shame a "national Caffe Cino." Ristau was a member of Geese Theatre, a Grotowski-based improvisational mask work company that only performed in prisons and has acted on university and reginal stages including a tour of W. David Hancock's Race of the Ark Tattoo. Ristau was the founding artistic director of Midwest Center for Developing Artists as well as Studio Roanoke. He led new works programming at Mill Mountain Theatre from 2003 to 2009. Ristau has taught in graduate and undergraduate theatre programs at several institutions and created the Playwright's Lab at Hollins University in 2007, which he led as program director until 2025. Active in leadership with SETC and KCACTF, his honors include the Kennedy Center Gold Medallion and the Kendig Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture. He is currently doing freelance work through Ristau Rising LLC and his clients include the Barter Theatre where he is helping to develop FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF RACE by Russell Nichols for an upcoming season. He also conducts regular workshops for their Young Playwrights Festival and is a regular respondent for their Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights.

Dramaturgy, Playwriting, Directing, Performing, Arts Management

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