Biography of Tom Isbell

TOM ISBELL is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and spent his professional career acting in theatre, film and TV, working opposite Robert DeNiro, Ed Harris, Helen Hunt, Lynn Redgrave, Rosemary Harris, Hal Holbrook, Anne Bancroft, Sarah Jessica Parker, and others.  He has taken two productions to the Kennedy Center as part of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival:  Dear Finder in 1999 (co-written with seven students), and The Movie Game in 2002 (written by UMD alum Adam Hummel). 

A professor of theatre at the University of Minnesota Duluth, he has been named the Albert Tezla Scholar/Teacher of the Year, the Jean G. Blehart Distinguished Teacher, as well  a Horace T. Morse Distinguished Teacher, the highest undergraduate teaching honor given within the four University of Minnesota campuses.  His book, Lessons: The Craft of Acting, was released in April, 2006, published by Meriwether Press. 

His most recent play was Teddy Roosevelt and the Treasure of Ursa Major, directed by Gregg Henry and with songs written by political humorist Mark Russell.  It opened at the Kennedy Center’s Family Theatre in October, 2006, and finished a four-month national tour in May 2008.  Simon & Schuster has published a book based on the play; Ronald Kidd wrote the adaptation; First Lady Laura Bush wrote the foreword. Mr. Isbell is currently working on a musical adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey with noted French composer Louis Dunoyer de Segonzac.