vailsymposium

Peter Garino is a founding member of The Shakespeare Project of Chicago and has served as its Artistic Director for the past 13 years. He recently directed  Trifles by Susan Glaspell, and News From Gravesend: The Wonderful Year, adapted from the plague pamphlets of Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker.  He is co-director (with Helene Augustyniak) of the film By Help of Devils, in which he portrays 14 of Shakespeare’s villains.  Selected appearances with The Project include Polonius in Hamlet,  the Prince/Peter in Romeo and Juliet, Marcus Andronicus in Titus Andronicus, Helicanus in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the Duke of Florence in Women Beware Women, Duke Senior and Duke Frederick in As You Like It, Camillo in The Winter’s Tale, the title role in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Lord LaFew in All’s Well That Ends Well, and the title role in The Merchant of Venice.  For The Shakespeare Project he has directed Richard III, The Roaring Girl, A Baker Street Christmas Caper, Much Ado About Nothing, Dream Upon Avon and Rowan Williams’ Shakeshafte, among many others.  Peter directed the Chicago premier of Tom Stoppard’s Darkside  (Incorporating The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd). Peter has worked with the Steppenwolf and Organic Theatre companies, the Body Politic, Pegasus Players and with the Oak Park Festival Theatre and Illinois Shakespeare Festival (three seasons).

Peter attended the National Shakespeare Conservatory and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting from Illinois State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts from Hofstra University, New York. Special thanks to Cyndi Rademacher for her leadership and dedication to the Niles-Maine District Library.