Sheila Ramsey
Sheila Ramsey spent her 25 year theatre career preparing to become the Founder and Artistic Director of The Dream Keeper Theatre Company. She began her career in Dayton with a performance group called Creative Energy, playing the role of "the woman in yellow" in Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. From the laughter and applause she received from that performance she was hooked, and so the journey to "The Dream" began.
Sheila immediately proved herself a teacher. Under her direction, Creative Energy began touring in its surrounding, Dayton, Ohio communities, performing the poetry of such famed Black poets as Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Maya Angelou as well as original poems written by the seven, female members of the group. From there, Sheila began performing her own one-woman poetry show, handling her own bookings, becoming a roster artist for the NY based Affiliate Artists. Through Affiliate Artists, Sheila toured hundreds of schools, churches, and community centers in many cities across the country. Simultaneously, she became an active member of a readers theatre group called, Illumination Theatre. This group later became Dayton's first professional resident theatre company, The Human Race Company. Sheila is a charter resident artist with the company.
When not on tour with the Human Race, Sheila worked with the now nationally acclaimed education program,
The Muse Machine. As its first (and for several years -- only) employee, she worked in several capacities. It
was a wonderful training ground where she learned many of her arts administrative skills, program creation
and execution, marketing, media communication, public relations, and production.
As an artist with the Muse Machine Sheila also performed in several touring in-school theatre programs and
represented the, organization by performing her one-woman poetry show at the Autunno Musicale Festivale
at Como, Italy and also at Carnivale in Venice, Italy.
After her ten years with The Muse Machine, Sheila began teaching theatre classes at Colonel White High School for the Arts in Dayton. In her six years at Colonel White, Sheila was instrumental in developing classes for acting, theatre history and theatre tech. Among the shows she directed and produced at Colonel White: A Woman Called Truth, The Wiz, Once on this Island, and Dream Girls. From there, Sheila began teaching at Wright State University where she is in her seventh year as Faculty Associate in the Theatre Studies program. She teaches Acting Aesthetics, Beginning Directing and a class on Women Playwrights. Her directing credits at Wright State include: The Colored Museum, Home, A Soldiers' Play, Inherit the Wind, From the Mississippi Delta, Biloxi Blues, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (named by The Dayton City Paper as Best Collegiate Production, Best Ensemble and Sheila was named Best Director of the 04-05 season), The Piano Lesson, The Elephant Man and the area premiere, The Story, co-produced with Sheila’s The Dream Keeper Theatre Company.
Sheila's directing work includes some of the most important Black scripts. Among those titles: Jitney (named by the Dayton City Paper as 2003's Best Professional Production, Best Ensemble, with Sheila receiving Honorable Mention as Best Director), From the Mississippi Delta, Having Our Say, Paul Robeson: All American, Sisters, Higher Ground, Fences, Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil and Two Trains Running. Other significant titles include Spinning into Butter, Wit, And Thats My Story, The Foreigner and the outdoor drama, Josiah!. Sheila's acting career has included many titles and performances in many venues. Among them Only Heaven, a show featuring the poetry of Langston Hughes set to the music of Ricky Ian Gordon; A Raisin in the Sun at CATCO in Columbus, OH (the Columbus Dispatch named her Best Actress for the 2000 season); Anton in Show Business, The Good Times are Killing Me, Beehive, Fences, and Bus Stop for The Human Race; From the Mississippi Delta for The Human Race, Virginia Stage Company, the Alley Theatre and Milwaukee Rep; and The Colored Museum for Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and the Human Race.
Last updated May 1, 2007
