BROOKE WETZEL CIARDELLI is the founding artistic director of Northern Stage, a regional non-profit theater operating under an AEA LORT-D contract, located on the border of Vermont and New Hampshire, with over 35,000 visits per year and a $1.8 million annual operating budget. In her career, Brooke has directed over 60 productions and is a proud member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

As a director, she has worked on a number of Arthur Miller plays, including "Resurrection Blues" with the playwright himself in residence, and an award-winning production of "All My Sons." She has directed Patrick Stewart and Lisa Harrow in "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and worked with playwright Sonja Linden on the American Premiere of "The Strange Passenger." Brooke has also directed regional premieres of "Wit," "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," "Pride’s Crossing" and "No Orchids For Miss Blandish," as well as a significant number of large-scale musicals.

As a creator, Brooke has adapted a number of classical pieces for the stage. In 1997 her adaptation of Ovid’s "Metamorphoses," "The 'O' Myths" - “A most delightful and refreshing original theater piece based on this ancient masterpiece” - was performed at Dartmouth College as the basis of an international exchange between Dartmouth students and actors from New York, Zimbabwe, Mexico and Romania. Her adaptation "The Shrew Tamer" (a coupling of Shakespeare’s "Taming of the Shrew" and John Fletcher’s "The Tamer Tamed") was reviewed as “a delicious new comedy,” and Ed Siegel of the Boston Globe wrote, “Ciardelli has fashioned a play of significant historical interest.” She is currently working on a stage adaptation of Boccaccio’s "Decameron" for international production and developing a musical based on the life of Anastasia Romanov.

Brooke has a great interest in creating collaborative partnerships with international artists and is currently working with Giles Ramsay (www.gilesramsay.co.uk) and his U.K.-based company Developing Artists (www.developingartist.co.uk). Through their relationship, she has worked with actors from Zimbabwe, Mexico and England, as well as touring, as co-director, with "I Am My Own Wife" (www.nswife.com), starring Kevin Loreque, to Harare, Zimbabwe and Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2009, she will continue her relationships with Zimbabwean theater artists, students from Durham University, England and new projects with Palestine, Israel and Macedonia both in country and the U.S.

Brooke has been a guest lecturer at the State University of New York, Albany; Chad’s College, Durham University, England; Harare International Festival of the Arts, Zimbabwe; the Elderhostel Program Tour to the Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland; Dartmouth College, NH; New England Theatre Conference, Boston, MA; Kendal at Hanover, NH; Adventures in Learning, NH; Keene State College, NH and others. She is a Visiting Fellow of University College, Durham University, Durham, England.

In the 90s, she was highly involved as a producer and director of casting for a number of independent feature films; "A Stranger In The Kingdom" starring Martin Sheen, "The Junior Defenders" starring Ally Sheedy, and "The Wedding Band" starring Mo Gaffney and Debbie Gibson. Brooke served as a Producer of Special Projects for Burlington City Arts and worked for a number of years with the Burlington Jazz Festival and the Ben & Jerry’s Festival, as well as providing management services to a number of bands and singer/songwriters, including Jon Fishman’s side project, Spastic.

Brooke received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College, with a concentration in directing; worked at The Williamstown Theater Festival and Broadway general management/producer’s office of Gatchell & Neufeld; and currently lives in Norwich, Vermont.