Stephanie Jane Hunt

Bio

Stephanie is an actor, director, and teacher of voice and acting. As a core member of the Bay Area theatre company, Word for Word, Stephanie has acted in numerous productions, including Tobias Wolff’s Sanity, Colm Tóibín’s Silence, Upton Sinclair’s Oil! and Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of her Peers. She was nominated for a Bay Area Critics Circle award for her performance as the mysterious Old Woman on the train in Kevin Barry's short story Wintersongs. Stephanie played Lizzie Borden in The Fall River Axe Murders by Angela Carter directed by Amy Freed. For Word for Word, Stephanie directed the productions of Bullet in the Brain and Lady's Dream by Tobias Wolff, and All Aunt Hagar’s Children by Edward P. Jones, which played at the Z Space before touring France. Also, she directed the noir thriller Angel Face by Cornell Woolrich. She has acted with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Campo Santo, Aurora Theatre, the Magic Theatre, Berkeley Shakespeare, the One Act Theater, and in New York at La Mama. For two years with Pulp Playhouse, Stephanie performed late-night comedy improv with O-Lan Jones and Mike McShane at the Eureka Theater. She has taught voice at ACT in the Summer Training Congress, and at the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, Chabot College, and Sonoma State University. Stephanie text and voice coaches many of the mainstage productions in the TAPS Department at Stanford University. She has directed a number of university productions. Most recently at Stanford, she directed Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, which was attended by the entire freshmen COLLEGE cohort. At USF, she directed Twelfth Night, and adapted and directed Alice Munro’s The View from Castle Rock. At Sonoma State she directed The Green Bird by Carlo Gozzi, Top Girls by Caryl Churchill, Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel, and The Exception and the Rule by Bertolt Brecht. Her training includes an MFA from the American Conservatory Theater and certification as an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework. Stephanie is committed to creating and teaching ensemble-based theater with a focus on heightened language.

Academic Appointments

• Lecturer, Theater and Performance Studies

Administrative Appointments

• Coordinator -- Acting Concentration, Stanford Theater and Performance Studies (2024 - Present)

Honors & Awards

• Directed one of the Ten Best Theater Productions "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff, San Francisco Chronicle (2002)
• Best Supporting Actress Award for "East", Bay Area Critics Circle Award (1990)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

• Core Company Member, Actor and Director, Word for Word Performing Arts Company at Z Space (1996 - Present)
• Member, Actors' Equity Association (AEA) (1993 - Present)
• Member, Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA) (2010 - Present)
• Member, National Alliance of Acting Teachers (NAAT) (2020 - Present)

Professional Education

• Associate Certified Teacher, Fitzmaurice Voicework, Voice and Performance (2010)
• M.F.A., American Conservatory Theater, Acting (1995)
• B.A., San Francisco State University, Acting (1986)