Todd McNerney is an Associate Professor in Performance, an actor and a director. In his nearly thirty-five-year career in the theatre he has directed and/or acted in over seventy productions. He has worked professionally on both coasts in theatre, film, and industrials. He has acted in works as varied as Shakespeare’s greatest works to a live action promotional play for Smirnoff vodka created by the folks that created Tony and Tina’s Wedding. His voice acting includes everything from radio advertisements to playing Phineas Fogg in a marionette production of Around the World in Eighty Dayspresented by the world famous Colla Marionettes. His directing credits include productions of The House of Blue Leaves, On the Verge, Take Me Out, and Spring Awakening among others. He is also a co-founder of The Shakespeare Project, a former summer component of the department, which produced two productions of Shakepeare’s works each year. Some of the works he directed for the Project included The Merchant of Venice (2000), Richard II (2002), The Merry Wives of Windsor (2004), King Lear (2006), Measure for Measure (2008), (which was voted Best Play (Non- Spoleto) by the Charleston City Paper in 2008), Cymbeline (2010), and Rosenencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (2013).
Todd spent three years touring around the world with the Swiss mime troupe Mummenschanz . In addition to those wonderful experiences of world travel, he developed a passion for the business side of the arts. In order to satisfy that passion he worked with the city of Charleston by serving as the Piccolo Spoleto Theatre Series Coordinator from 1995 through 2005. Eleven years ago he founded the Stelle di Domani series now presented at Piccolo Spoleto annually.