Biography
Robert Bailey is the winner of the 2025 Award for Best Solo Performance from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle for IN SOME DARK VALLEY: The Testimony of Reverend Brand, which he wrote and has performed in California, New York, London and in the Appalachian region of Virginia. He teaches directing and acting at USC and has staged over fifteen School of Dramatic Arts productions, including three new plays written by students in the MFA Dramatic Writing program. He earned his degree in theatre arts and dramatic literature from Brown University and was awarded upon graduation with a Samuel Arnold Fellowship to work with renowned theatrical innovator Jerzy Grotowski at the Polish Laboratory Theatre in Wroclaw. He subsequently became a founding member, actor, director and teacher at the Washington Theatre Laboratory, an experimental troupe in the nation’s capital which adapted works by Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, John Hawkes and Hans Christian Andersen.
In New York he was associated with several leading theatres, including Circle Repertory Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, American Place Theatre, the Williamstown Theatre Festival and the Actors Studio, often working on first productions of new plays. His direction of Borderlines by John Bishop (Circle Rep) and Lilith by Allan Havis (Home for Contemporary Theatre and Art) won praise in The New York Times, New York Magazine and the Village Voice. He taught acting for many years at the Corner Loft Studio in Greenwich Village, and conducted workshops and master classes for Sarah Lawrence College, Brown University, School for Visual Arts, Manhattan Theatre Workshop, Foundation for the Creative Community, Billy Siegenfeld and Dancers, Talent Unlimited and the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
In Los Angeles, Bailey has earned critical acclaim for his direction of John Bishop’s Borderline (winner of six DramaLogue Awards), Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Kenneth Lonergan’s Lobby Hero; and for his performances as an actor in Frank Wedekind’s Lulu, David Rabe’s A Question of Mercy, and Charles L. Mee’s Big Love. He has also directed for the Young Audience Program at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His dramatic film Last Call won three awards at the Breckenridge Festival of Film in Colorado; was an official selection at film festivals in Avignon, Sedona, Long Island, Queens, Los Angeles and New York City; and was released on a compilation DVD produced by the Cinequest Film Festival. He has taught and directed on the graduate and undergraduate levels at UC San Diego, UCLA and Brown University and conducts a private workshop for aspiring and working directors in Los Angeles.