Rinde Eckert, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, composes, writes, performs and directs productions that tour throughout America, and to major European and Asian festivals.

He began his career as a writer/performer in the 1980’s, writing librettos for composer Paul Dresher and composing dance scores for choreographers Sarah Shelton Mann and Margaret Jenkins, including the evening-length Woman, Window, Square for The Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. Beginning with his 1992 homage to Dante, The Gardening of Thomas D, Eckert has composed and performed his own music/theater pieces. Recent work includes the Obie Award winning And God Created Great Whales (2001), commissioned/produced The Foundry Theatre; Highway Ulysses (2003) and Orpheus X (2007 Pulitzer Prize Finalist), commissioned/produced American Repertory Theatre; Horizon, a play with music and song (2005); and An Idiot Divine, two one-act solo operas.

ART, The Foundry Theatre, Culture Project, Center Stage in Baltimore, Dobama Theatre Company and Berkeley Repertory Theater have produced his work. His recent collaborators include Dream House and Slide / Steven Mackey, Sound Stage / Paul Dresher and Zeitgeist, Sandhills Reunion / Jerry Granelli.

Rinde Eckert is a Guggenheim Fellow and received the 2005 Marc Blitzstein Award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters.
His work has received Critics Circle and Isadora Duncan Awards in San Francisco, an Obie Award and two Drama Desk Award Nominations in New York, and Boston’s Eliot Norton Award for Best Production by a Large Resident Company.

Working with students, Rinde Eckert created and directed Fate and Spinoza. This world premiere opened on February 29, 2008 in Main Theatre. Mr. Eckert also performed in a special production of Orpheus X, the work that won him a 2007 Pulitzer Prize nomination. This was a one- night American Repertory Theatre/ART presentation on February 16, 2008 in Main Theatre.