Biography

Cheryl Lynn Bruce

Cheryl Lynn Bruce returns to Steppenwolf Theatre Company where she previously appeared in Everyman, Intimate Apparel, Nomathemba and The Grapes of Wrath (also Broadway, National Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse). She most recently appeared in Danai Gurira’s The Convert (McCarter Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Kirk Douglas Theatre), for which she received both Joseph Jefferson and Ovation Award nominations. She made her professional debut in Goodman Theatre’s production of Death and the King’s Horseman, directed by its Nobel laureate author Wole Soyinka. Other Goodman Theatre credits include The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove, Each One as She May, Cry, the Beloved Country, Black Star Line, All’s Well that Ends Well and Trojan Women. Other theatre credits include The Great Fire, RACE (Lookingglass Theatre Company); Snow Queen, The Voice of Good Hope, Eurydice (Victory Gardens Theater); Flyin’ West (Court Theatre); and From the Mississippi Delta (Northlight Theatre, Arena Stage, Hartford Stage, Circle in the Square Theatre), for which she won Helen Hayes, Joseph Jefferson and Connecticut Critics Circle Awards. Regional credits include Harriet Jacobs, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (Kansas City Repertory Theatre); Gem of the Ocean (Ensemble Theatre); and The Story (Milwaukee Repertory Theater). Film and television credits include Prison Break, There Are No Children Here, Separate But Equal, To Sir, With Love Part 2, Stranger than Fiction, Daughters of the Dust and The Fugitive. Named inaugural fellow of the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media (2006) at Columbia College Chicago, she received a Jane Addams Hull House Association Woman of Valor Award (2010) and a 3Arts Award in Theatre Arts (2011). A member of Teatro Vista, she also serves on the Links Hall Board, and is an Artist in Residence at Yale University Art Gallery.