A two-time Fulbright Scholar, Blake Hackler has appeared in productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in regional theatres throughout the country, working with such acclaimed directors as Michael Mayer, Scott Ellis, Alex Timbers and Mike Alfreds. In New York, he worked with theatres including Playwrights Horizons, York Theatre, The Ohio, and Roundabout, as well as creating the role of Moritz Stiefel in the original New York workshop of the Tony-award winning musical Spring Awakening. In Dallas, Hackler is a member of the Brierley Resident Acting Company at the Tony Award-winning Dallas Theater Center and has also appeared at the Trinity Shakespeare Festival, Undermain Theatre, Second Thought Theatre and Theatre Three.
As a playwright, Hackler’s work has been seen across the U.S. He is a lifetime member of the esteemed BMI/Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Writing Workshop and was the 2009 recipient of the Harrington Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre Writing. His plays have twice been nominated for the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award. Terru Teachout of the Wall Street Journal called his recent adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler “…one of the best adaptations I’ve ever seen.” His play What We Were, was a winner of the Ashland New Play Festival and a finalist for the O’Neill Playwriting Conference and received a rolling world premiere in 2019. In 2023, his play This Sweet Affliction will premiere in London’s West End.
Hackler has directed for nationally and internationally. In Dallas he’s worked at Theatre Three, Trinity Shakespeare, Second Thought Theatre and the Undermain. His recent production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was hailed as a “theatrical achievement of the highest order” and his production of The Flick won the Dallas Theater Critics’ Best of 2015.
As a teacher, Hackler currently holds faculty positions at Yale University and SMU. He has also taught at New Bulgarian University, Roosevelt University, AMDA, the National Theatre Workshop for the Handicapped, and through the Kennedy Center as an Artist in Residence. He has given master classes at numerous institutions including Brown University/Trinity MFA, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, the National Conservatory of Music and the National Theatre and Film Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria. He also served as acting coach for comedian Lisa Lampanelli.