Gus Menary is a theatre director, producer, and arts curator specializing in diverse programming and new play development.
He most recently directed Leo Larson’s Ready Up! for the Breakdown for DePaul University’s Wrights of Spring Festival and Ike Holter’s The Audience Unseen at the Goodman Theatre’s New Stages Festival.
He also directed the Midwest premiere of Ronan Noone’s The Smuggler for Jackalope Theatre, which received an extended run and remount.
From 2020 to 2023, Gus served as Artistic Director of Book-It Repertory Theatre in Seattle, where he led the company through the challenges of the pandemic by launching an ambitious slate of Audioplay productions. These included world-premiere adaptations of works by authors such as Octavia E. Butler, N. K. Jemisin, Tochi Onyebuchi, and the serialized adaptation of Jamyang Norbu’s The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes, which he directed. As live performance returned, he produced new stage adaptations of Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter and Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, among others. His onstage directing credits at Book-It include Julian Glover’s adaptation of Beowulf and the PNW premiere of Solaris adapted by David Greig from the novel by Stanislaw Lem.
Prior to his time in Seattle, Gus served as Artistic Director of Jackalope Theatre in Chicago from 2015 to 2020. Under his leadership, Jackalope Theatre became one of the largest originators of new plays in the midwest with world premieres by Ike Holter, Kenneth Lin, Calamity West, Lloyd Suh, and Idris Goodwin among tohers. He launched several artist development initiatives including the GroundWorks Series, the CircleUp! Reading Series, and the Jackalope Playwright’s Lab. He also forged partnerships with organizations such as Theatre Without Borders, Chicago Inclusion Project, and the Chicago Park District. Newcity Magazine named him one of the “Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago” every year from 2016 to 2020.
Gus is a founding member of The Roustabouts and The Inconvenience, where he served as Director of Music and Theatre Programming. He has worked with a wide range of Chicago theatre companies including Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, A Red Orchid Theatre, American Theater Company, Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company, First Floor Theater, and Strawdog Theatre Company.