CHRISTOPHER MCELROEN is a Brooklyn-based media artist committed to generating artistic content across disciplinary boundaries that aspires to reflect on America—its ideals and realities, and that which unites and divides its people. He is currently the Founding Artistic Director of the american vicarious, having previously co-founded The Classical Theatre of Harlem.
Listed as "Highbrow and Brilliant" in the New York Magazine Approval Matrix, Christopher recently adapted and directed Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley, a restaging of the 1965 Cambridge Union debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. This historical debate continues to shed light on the deep-seated roots and enduring legacy of racial conflict in America. Since its NYC premiere in October 2020, the production has been on an international tour. Most notably, in April 2023, it concluded a successful six-week run in London's West End. The play returned to the UK in October 2023 for performances at the Bristol Old Vic and the Cambridge Union itself. The production is set to continue its international tour through 2025, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the original debate.
Winner of the Best Non-Fiction Feature at the 2022 Cairo International Film Festival, Christopher produced Far From the Nile, a documentary feature film that follows 12 African musicians from seven countries along the Nile River as they unite in an international coalition to spotlight the water conflict along the river they share. Departing from their homes in Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Burundi, and Uganda, they embark on a 100-day tour of America's heartland.
In response to the events of January 6th , Christopher created Negative Liberty / Positive Liberty, a performance installation that invites a single viewer to lend their voice to an artistic distillation of Isaiah Berlin's 1958 lecture, "Two Concepts of Liberty." Berlin argues that using concepts of liberty rhetorically to control individuals in the name of liberty itself inevitably leads to politically motivated violence.
Also listed as "Highbrow and Brilliant" in the New York Magazine Approval Matrix, Christopher created Static Apnea (2020). In this performance installation, one audience member, surrounded by a tunnel of blue light, descends towards a single performer behind a glass wall. In a 9-minute and 2-second performance—the female record for static apnea—this installation explores breath and our collective need to hold it in 2020.
Nominated for 4 AUDELCO Awards, Christopher developed and directed Jaymes Jorsling's (A)loft Modulation, a new play with jazz inspired by Sam Stephenson's "The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965."
Christopher developed and directed Piedmont Blues: A Search for Salvation in collaboration with four-time Grammy Award nominee Gerald Clayton. The two-year journey through the Piedmont region of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia resulted in a 75-minute musical suite incorporating film, dance, music, and the voices of blues artists. Piedmont Blues: A Search for Salvation premiered at Duke Performances in December 2016 and continues to tour, most recently to Harlem Stage in June 2022.
Christopher received a 2013 Helen Hayes Award for directing the world premiere stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison's iconic novel Invisible Man. To create public ownership of Ellison's novel in its first-ever stage adaptation, McElroen built national partnerships and engaged local communities in workshops and discussions around race, identity, and the American experience. The project premiered at the Court Theatre in Chicago in January 2012 and received seven Jeff Awards. Invisible Man has been produced at The Huntington Theatre in Boston and The Studio Theatre in DC.
Alongside visual artist Paul Chan and Creative Time, Christopher co-produced and directed Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, a year-long community development initiative in post-Katrina New Orleans. The project staged Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot outdoors in the Lower Ninth Ward and Gentilly communities and was recognized by the New York Times as one of the top ten national art events of 2007. Archives from the production are now part of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Christopher had the honor of directing the world premiere of 51st (dream) State, the final work of poet, musician, and activist Sekou Sundiata. This multimedia exploration of the American empire premiered at The Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival before touring internationally.
Christopher co-founded the acclaimed Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH), producing 41 productions from 1999 to 2009, earning 18 AUDELCO Awards, 6 OBIE Awards, 2 Lucille Lortel Awards, a Drama Desk Award, and recognition as "1 of 8 theatres in America to Watch" by the Drama League.
His CTH directing credits include The Cherry Orchard with Wendell Pierce and Earle Hyman, Three Sisters with Reg E. Cathy, Earle Hyman, Roger Guenveur Smith, and Carmen de Lavallade, an original adaptation of Richard Wright's novel Native Son, Marat/Sade with T. Ryder Smith, and The Blacks: A Clown Show, which received four 2003 OBIE Awards and was named one of the ten best Off-Broadway productions of 2003 by The New York Times.
His work has been featured at various venues, including the Court Theatre, Studio Theatre, Huntington Theatre, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Public Theatre's Under the Radar Festival, The Duke on 42nd Street, 59E59, The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, The Walker Arts Center, The Museum of Modern Art, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, The Invisible Dog, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Biennale-Bonn, and Globe Neuss, among others.
He has guest lectured at Stanford University, Duke University, Purdue University, New York University, Pace University, Dartmouth College, University of Iowa, and the University of North Carolina, among many others.
His work has been recognized with the American Theatre Wing Award (Outstanding Artistic Achievement), Drama Desk Award (Artistic Achievement), Edwin Booth Award (Outstanding Contribution to NYC Theater), Lucille Lortel Award (Outstanding Body of Work), two Obie Awards (Sustained Achievement and Excellence in Theatre), and a Helen Hayes Award (Outstanding Direction).