Irene Alby

Teaching Associate Professor, Acting and Directing

Director, WVU Youth Academy

MFA – Columbia University SOA

BFA – Concordia University (Montreal)

Irene Alby joined the WVU School of Theatre and Dance in 2016, after teaching for twelve years at the University of Toledo Department of Theatre and Film.  A Director/Actor, her New York credits include: Aase in Peer Gynt directed by Andrei Serban, The Dancing Fox with the Mettawee River Theatre, and Serban’s Benvenuto Cellini at the NY Metropolitan Opera, as well as performances at the Ohio Theatre Ice Factory Theatre Festival, the Producer’s Club, St. Veronica’s Church and the Theatre of the Riverside Church. Regional directing credits include: A Christmas Carol for West Virginia Public Theatre, Love's Labour’s Lost for Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks and God's Ear for The Glacity Theatre Collective. Regional Acting credits: Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks’ Julius Caesar, Cymbeline, and Hamlet as well as performances with Bricolage Theatre, The Toledo Symphony Orchestra, The Glacity Theatre Collective and Steel City Shakespeare. International acting credits include The Stronger (2020) and Molly Bloom: Fragments (2021), two virtual solo performances for the First Global Women’s Performing Arts Festival in Busan, South Korea. 

In Canada, Irene Alby was a company member of The Other Theatre/L’Autre Théâtre, performing in Kaspar, Year Zero and Human Collision/Atomic Reaction which was presented at the 1999 Festival de Théâtre des Amériques and won the Montreal English Critics Circle Award(M.E.C.C.A.) for “Best Direction” and “Best Production”.  Alby continues to serve as a company Board Member.

She has directed over 20 productions including: Exit, Pursued by a Bear, Sonnets for an Old Century, New Anatomies, Henry V, Machinal, In the Next Room /The Vibrator Play and The Arabian Nights.  Her production of The Adding Machine was invited to tour to the 2015 KCACTF Region II Festival. She co-directed A Midsummer Night's Dream at Kookmin University in Seoul, Korea. She is a founding artist of the Glacity Theatre Collective (GTC), and Stray Dogs International.  Alby has studied under Kristin Linklater, Andrei Serban, Anne Bogart, Slava Dolgachev, Neil Freeman and Nikolaus Wolcz.  She has trained extensively in Montreal at the Ecole de Mime, Omnibus and with Pol Pelletier’s Dojo. She is a Certified RYT 200 Yoga Teacher and Social Emotional Learning Facilitator with Breathe For Change.  More info can be seen at her website: irenealby.com