Julie Nelson (she/her) is an actor, teacher, and professor emeritus (sic) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Recently she was in George Brant’s Dark Room at Bridge Rep Theater, Boston and played Marie Antoinette in The Revolutionists at Silverthorne Theater. Other roles include Mrs. Gardiner and Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice at Playmakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, NC, and Grace in Vigil at Portland Stage Company, Portland, Maine. In New York she played Childie in The Killing of Sister George Off Broadway, and Myrna-the-Docent for Conway and Pratt. She is a founding member of Shakespeare & Company, where she played Helena in A MidsummerNight’s Dream on the main stage and national tour, Celia in As You Like It, Fabian in Twelfth Night, Cory in Private Eyes and Edith Wharton in Wharton-land. Her training in theatrical clown with Merry Conway is the springboard for her work and incited her to further study with Philippe Gaulier and Jacques Lecoq, among others. Julie navigated academia’s Byzantine path from Visiting Lecturer to Full Professor at UMass, where she taught acting, voice, movement, and clown. In collaboration with the UMass Center for Women and Community, she directed and produced a play for New Student Orientation about sexual assault on college campuses. It was seen by thousands of incoming students and was subsequently adopted for orientations at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith Colleges. She has taught in the actor-training program in El Salvador’s National Arts Center, San Salvador, The School of Drama at the New School, The Berkshire Theatre Festival; Actors Theatre of Louisville, and St. Stephen’s School in Austin, Texas. She is an alum of artEquity’s National Facilitator Training, 2016, and a theater consultant for the Wellesley Racial Justice Initiative. Member, AEA, SAG-AFTRA