Emily Cherry Oliver

Biography

Emily Cherry Oliver is the Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of North Dakota. She holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from Texas Wesleyan University and an MFA in Directing from Western Illinois University, and she draws on both degrees throughout her work as a director, performer, educator, and academic leader. Her areas of scholarship include directing, performance, and AI in the arts and humanities.

As a director, Professor Oliver has staged productions professionally and academically for more than two decades. Her professional credits include The Little Mermaid, 9 to 5, Mamma Mia!, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Addams Family, and Shrek at Black Hills Playhouse, as well as Broadway in the Badlands in Medora, North Dakota. At UND she has directed The Addams Family, Wait Until Dark, Unnecessary Farce, Into the Woods, and Urinetown, along with My Generation, an original work she conceived and directed that was invited to the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. As a performer, she has appeared as M'Lynn in Steel Magnolias, Aunt Eller in Oklahoma!, and Gertrude in Hamlet, among others.

Beyond the stage, Professor Oliver is an active leader in the field and on campus. She serves as Co-Chair of American College Theatre Festival (ACTF) Region 5, the nation's largest regional festival, drawing more than 1,300 attendees across a seven-state region, and sits on the festival's national committee. She is also Co-Director of UND's AI and Human Innovation Initiative, where she leads efforts to connect the arts and humanities with artificial intelligence and serves as principal investigator on the AI and Human Innovation Center. She consults nationally on AI in the arts and humanities and is a trained program evaluator for the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST).