Ms. Hussey is currently the Director of Theatre and Theatre Studies at Wellesley College where she teaches, directs the mainstage productions, and mentors the student/experimental performances. Prior to Wellesley, she taught and guest directed at colleges and universities from Bangor, Maine to Providence, Rhode Island. At the 1998 Wellesley College Commencement, Ms. Hussey was awarded the Pinanski Prize for excellence in teaching.
Among the productions done at Wellesley are: Working; Medea; Our Town; The Cherry Orchard; Under Milkwood; A Chorus Line; Ladybird...Ladybird; Goodnight Desdemona...Good Morning Juliet; A Doll’s House; Noises Off; Elektra; A Piece of My Heart; The Diary of Anne Frank; On the Twentieth Century; Never in My Lifetime; and Prides Crossing. These last two productions were awarded the prestigious Moss Hart Award for theatrical excellence. Wellesley College Theatre (WCT) has been a regional finalist four times in the last seven years at the American College Theatre Festival. With Wellesley students she has created three world premieres in recent years: Under My Heart, Women Who Will...What?, and Coming Ashore. (Coming Ashore was presented in a shortened version at Radio City for a Wellesley event.)
In 1998 Ms. Hussey founded the Wellesley Summer Theatre (WST) with a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Since then WST has presented 15 productions including a world premiere, American premiere, and two New England premieres. WST has received the Moss Hart Award in the professional division the past two years for The Clearing and Little Moon of Alban. In the coming year she will direct two world premieres for WST by Boston playwrights Laura Harrington (The Book of Hours) and Cathleen Rogers (Ballast). Ballast will be produced in collaboration with CentaStage at the Boston Center for the Arts in September. The Book of Hours will premiere at the Jones Theatre in Wellesley in January 2005.
In the last 20 years, Nora has directed over 90 productions in regional, small professional, and university theatres across New England. A few of those productions include Hallowed Ground (world premiere); Blood Knot; Carthaginians; Spoils of War; Talking With; Ourselves Alone; The Hostage; Sleuth; And a Nightingale Sang; Sea Marks; A Christmas Carol; Steel Magnolias; Little Moon of Alban; Life with Father; Anna Karenina; Philadelphia Here I Come; Uncommon Women and Others; Artichoke; Lovers; Waiting for the Parade; and Prayers of Sherkin. In recent years she co-adapted and then directed the Poets' Theatre production of I Am of Ireland: The Women of the North Speak Out. The script was subsequently selected for inclusion in the International Festival of Women Playwrights, and she directed it in Galway, Ireland in the summer of 1997. As directorial assistant to Derek Walcott, she directed three world premieres for the Boston Playwrights' Theatre. She is a founding member of the Guild, which was dedicated to the support and the promotion of women theatre artists in New England.
Born in County Kerry, Ireland, she is married to Kieran Brennan, and they have a 15-year-old son, Rory Gareth.
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Profile last updated: 12/04