Chris Anthony is a director, teacher, actor, and producer working at the intersection of art and community empowerment. Holding an MFA in Acting from the California Institute of the Arts, she has worked in educational, professional, and community spaces. She has worked to find common ground between art and community, using human relations dialogue to enrich artistic practice and artmaking in service of community development.
Chris was a member of the acting faculty at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and Grand Arts (the LAUSD School of Visual and Performing Arts). University directing credits include California State Universities at Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Northridge, as well as Loyola Marymount University.
She has been a guest teacher at USC, CSU Dominguez Hills, Cal Poly Pomona, and Laverne University.
Professional directing credits include the original Off the Rails for Native Voices at the Autry, Lunch Lady Courage at Cornerstone Theater, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, and Othello at the St. Louis Black Rep, and Romeo & Juliet at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles.
As Associate Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, she oversaw the development of the company’s Youth & Education programs: Will Power to Youth, Will to Work, and Play On for youth; Will Power to Schools and the Youth Arts Professionals Institute for classroom teachers and community arts practitioners. Will Power to Youth won the prestigious Coming Up Taller Award, was studied by Harvard’s Project Zero for the study The Qualities of Quality: Understanding Excellence in Arts Education, and is featured in Ayanna Thompson’s Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America.
A former board member of TYA/USA, her other professional affiliations have included Center Theatre Group, About… Productions, TeAda Productions, Fringe Benefits Theatre, Plaza de la Raza, and Shakespeare at the Huntington.