Artist Profiles

Cheryl Lynn Bruce

Cheryl Lynn Bruce is a Chicago-based director, actor and playwright. Her career has been focused on developing and directing works that highlight underrepresented stories. Ms. Bruce was the Inaugural Fellow of the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media-Columbia College Chicago, for which she received funding and research support for the development of a performance project based on the life of Black colonial slave poet Phillis Wheatley. She also developed a performance project based on the life of Edward Alexander Bouchet, Yale’s first Black doctoral graduate in Physics. Ms. Bruce directed Kerry James Marshall’s Rythm Mastr for the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio. She received both a Jane Addams Hull House Association Woman of Valor Award and a coveted 3Arts Artist Award with unrestricted grant in support of her work in theatre arts. Ms. Bruce has appeared on stages across the country as well as in Europe and Mexico.