Brainin is a freelance director and
Associate Professor of Theater at University of California,
Santa Barbara. From 1987-1997, she resided in Minneapolis and
served on the artistic staff of the Guthrie Theater as Resident
Director, Associate Company Director, and Acting Instructor in
the company's outreach program. Her Twin Cities directing
credits include plays at the Guthrie Theater, History Theatre,
Illusion Theatre, Cricket Theatre, SteppingStone Theatre, and
Mixed Blood. After leaving Minnesota, she served as Associate
Artistic Director for both Indiana Repertory Theatre and Kansas
City Repertory Theatre and as Artistic Director of Shakespeare
Santa Cruz. Other directing credits include work at Alabama
Shakespeare Festival, American Players Theatre, Actors' Theatre
of Louisville, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Portland Stage
Company, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, Rhodope
International Theatre Lab, New Harmony, Idaho Shakespeare
Festival and the Great Lakes Theatre Festival where her
production of Julius Caesar received the Northern Ohio Live Award. A
graduate of the Carnegie-Mellon University Drama Program,
Brainin is currently the Director of Performance at UCSB. In
2006, she received a Santa Barbara Independent Award for
directing John Walch’s The
Dinosaur Within and
Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. Ms. Brainin directed the world premiere of Bob
Stromberg’s Mr. Wonder Boy at the Music Box Theatre in Minneapolis and the
world premieres of Barbara Lebow’s Plumfield, Iraq and La Niñera: The Nursemaid at UCSB. Most recently, Ms. Brainin
directed Gunmetal Blues at the Ensemble Theatre and Secret
Order at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.
