Dr. Neil Scharnick is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and serves as coordinator of Carthage’s one-of-a-kind New Play Initiative, commissioning new works by award-winning playwrights and premiering them at Carthage.

Scharnick regularly teaches Play Reading & Analysis and the cycle of theatre history courses, in addition to creating and frequently leading the Ensemble & Experimental Acting course. Scharnick directs one production each season, with past Carthage productions including Brian Friel’s Translations; David Auburn’s Proof; G.B. Shaw’s Arms and the Man, Jean-Claude van Itallie and Joseph Chaikin’s The Serpent; Thoroughly Modern Millie; Mohan Rakesh’s One Day in the Season of Rain (New Play Initiative); Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone; Martin Maguire’s A Clamour of Rooks (New Play Initiative, premiered at Smock Alley in Dublin, Ireland); John Cariani’s Almost, Maine; Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; Caridad Svich’s The Breath of Stars (New Play Initiative, presented at CrisisArt Festival, Arezzo, Italy, 2016); John Dryden’s Marriage à la Mode; and Into the Woods.

Scharnick remains engaged with theatres in Milwaukee and Chicago. He has recently served as a reader for both the the Milwaukee and the Wisconsin (Madison) Young Playwrights Festivals. He has been the pre-show lecturer at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, and has served as both director and dramaturg for the Wisconsin Wrights New Play Project--most recently for Sarah Gubbins' "The Kid Thing." He is also a CrisisArt Collective member and a nominator for the Kilroys List.

Dr. Scharnick has presented his work at the annual conferences of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), the Association for Asian Performance (AAP), and at UW-Madison’s Center for Early Modern Studies. He is also a member of Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA) and is a Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) Associate. His primary research and production interests include Restoration theatre, new play dramaturgy, theatre and faith, and ensemble and experimental playmaking and performance.