John AmmermanProfessor, Theater StudiesResident Actor/Director, Theater Emory

John Ammerman is a professional actor, director, fight choreographer, and playwright. He has been a professional artist for over 40 years and has performed more than 150 professional roles. His solo career includes five one-man plays written and performed, including Booth, Brother Booth which appeared at the Globe Theatre in London, England, and is featured in an anthology of his plays entitled Booth, Brother Booth, and Other Plays. His most recent plays produced at Theater Emory include The Tatischeff Café, Life Goes on (in the style of a Black and White silent film), Slapping Bernard (in the style of Black and White Film Noir), and a stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. His new play, The Fortune's Fools, concerns John Bulwar and his Natural Language of the Hand and its use in 1644 England to tutor Cromwell's daughter whom Bulwar teaches sign language at a time when signing was not yet invented. His directing for Theater Emory has included not only his original works, but also Ah, Wilderness, Oklahoma, You Can’t Take It With You, The Red Coat, Enigma Variations, Ajax, Romeo and Juliet, and Sumidagawa. Most recently, he appeared as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest with Atlanta's Irish Company Aris, and directed Wycherley's The Country Wife at the American Shakespeare Tavern. 

Other directing credits include The Playboy of the Western World, Woman and Scarecrow, The Persians, Illyria, Still Life, The Heiress, Hamlet, and Doubt. He has extended histories in performance and direction with both the Virginia Shakespeare Festival and the Georgia Shakespeare Festival including roles as Shylock, Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard III, Cyrano de Bergerac, Prospero, Sir Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons, and Salieri in Amadeus. He is the founder of The Refuge Theatre whose inaugural production of Durrenmatt’s Conversation At Night With A Despised Character appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe International Theatre Festival in 2014, and in 2020 his play Barton Field received its professional premiere in Atlanta, Georgia. He is a member of the Actors Equity Association and the National Theatre Conference; he is also a recipient of the Suzi Bass Award in Acting for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons. He holds an M.F.A. in Performance from the University of Georgia, and a Bachelor of Science in Drama Education from Central Michigan University. He is a former student of the French Mime master, Marcel Marceau, and America’s Foremost Mime, Richmond Shepard. He has also served as Artistic Director for Theater Emory. In the Department of Theater Studies, he teaches movement, styles, acting at the advanced and beginning levels, and scene work.