Artistic director
Civic Ensemble
Godfrey L. Simmons Jr. is artistic director of Civic Ensemble, a community-based theater in Ithaca, New York, co-founded with Sarah K. Chalmers and Jennifer Herzog. He is also a senior lecturer in acting at Cornell University.
For Civic, he appeared in Athol Fugard’s “My Children, My Africa,” directed Eugene O’Neill’s “All God’s Chillun Got Wings,” and co-produced Judy Tate’s “Slashes of Light.” Most recently, in a collaboration between Cornell and Civic Ensemble, Godfrey co-taught a theater for social change class that focused on climate change and resulted in the Living Newspaper play "Climates of Change," featuring undergraduate and graduate students, community members and professional artists.
For Epic, Simmons co-wrote and starred in a documentary play about the election of President Barack Obama, “Dispatches From (A)mended America.” In addition to Epic, he has appeared in new plays and classics at several off-Broadway and Regional theater companies, including Primary Stages, Playwrights Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theater, People’s Light, Syracuse Stage, Round House Theater and Olney Theater Center.
Simmons is a 2012 TCG/Fox Fellow and a participant in the SPARK Leadership Program, funded by American Express, The Joyce Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group. He has also taught acting at Marymount Manhattan College and Binghamton University. He is a lifetime member of Ensemble Studio Theater.