Professor ERIC TRULES is a Fulbright Scholar and Senior Specialist, a Senior Lecturer at USC’s School of Theatre, and an internationally-acclaimed artist-educator. He is a native of New York City and has been a professional in the performing, literary, and media arts for over 35 years. He began as a modern dancer and choreographer with Shirley Mordine’s Dance Troupe, and then co-founded Mo Ming, the nationally renowned Dance-Theater in Chicago. Trules was one of the first federally funded CETA grant recipients in America for his dance work, which also received support from the Illinois Arts Council and the NEA. He then returned to NYC and founded and directed its Resident Clown Troupe, the Cumeezi Bozo Ensemble, a company which was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, appeared at Lincoln Center and Town Hall, and toured Holland, Switzerland, and France. Trules created the concept and program of "Free Public Laughs" which brought the performing arts to alternative, under-served and ethnically diverse communities throughout the metropolitan area. In 1977, Trules ran for Mayor of NYC as clown candidate, Gino Cumeezi, and Gino finished 5 ^th out of 4 candidates!

After studying with Lee Strasberg and working Off-Broadway in New York, Trules came to Los Angeles in 1983, acting at the Mark Taper Forum, and in television and in films (See separate resume). He is perhaps best known however, for his Solo Performance work. In 1988 he wrote his own one man show, DOWN...BUT NOT OUT, which he performed at both the Wallenboyd Theater and at Theater/Theatre in LA, and then went on to present it at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where he was nominated by London's Independent newspaper for its first annual Theater Award. Next Trules wrote and performed W(HOLES), another theatrical collection of monologues and dialogues - on the theme of Illness and Healing, also at Theater/Theatre in Hollywood, followed by IT'S THE DAY AFTER VALENTINE'S DAY in 1995, which he presented at the Hudson Guild in LA and again at the Edinburgh Fringe. In 2002-2003, Trules was an original member of the long-running theatrical anthology of monologues in Los Angeles called COCK TALES.

As a writer and performance poet Trules has been featured at Beyond Baroque and in the LA Poetry Festival, and he has had his work published in national anthologies and in The Los Angeles Times. He has also read his work on KCRW and KPFK radio and hosted "Theater Closeup" on KPFK. He has been editor and co-publisher of Euphonia, A Los Angeles Journal for Men, and is an Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award Winner.

As a theatrical director Trules studied directing with Lee Strasberg and Jose Quintero. He has directed theater at many of the best houses in Los Angeles including AMERICA'S FINEST by Burke Byrnes at the Wallenboyd and Back Alley Theaters in LA, as well as in San Francisco and Edinburgh, Scotland. He also directed THE SLATER BROTHERS by Jack Slater and Ed Harris at the Powerhouse and Olio Theaters in LA, and the Drama-Logue and LA Weekly award winning comedies WARHIT and MORE WARHIT at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.

Trules has been a universtiy educator since 1970 when he taught Theatre at Columbia College in Chicago at age 23. He joined the faculty of USC's School of Theater, one of the top ranked schools in the country, in 1986 as an Adjunct Assistant Professor. He has also been an Adjunct Assistant Professor in USC’s prestigious School of Cinema-Television. He is currently a full-time Senior Lecturer at USC’s School of Theater. In addition, he has been a Creative Writing Instructor for CSSSA at Cal Arts and a member of the Performing Arts faculty at UCLA Extension. In 1999, Trules won the prestigious national Phi Kappa Phi “Faculty Recognition Award”, one of only 4 faculty members campus-wide at USC. In 2002 Trules was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Malaysia for 8 months, teaching at 2 Islamic universities, shortly after 9/11. In 2004, he gave the prestigious, campus-wide “What Matters to Me and Why” lecture, and in 2007 he was a guest artist and instructor for China’s most prestigious modern dance company, LDTX Beijing Modern Dance Company. He is currently on the candidate roster as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in American Studies from 2008-13.

As a filmmaker, Trules trained at NYU and UCLA Film Schools, studying with Nicholas Ray among others. He is a National Poetry Film & Video Festival award winner, and a Western States Regional Media Arts Fellow for his feature-length documentary film, THE POET AND THE CON, an autobiographical film about the relationship between himself and his uncle, a convicted felon and a career criminal. The film was completed in 1999, favorably reviewed and featured in the Los Angeles Times, and had a successful theatrical run at several of the Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles. It has played extensively at both domestic and international film festivals, and it is currently available on Netflix and Amazon.com.

Trules has worked as Director of Development for Patrick Wells & Associates, producer of the feature films, YOUNGBLOOD and I LOVE YOU TO DEATH. He has directed music videos, industrials, documentaries, and short narrative features. As a screenwriter he has completed several original screenplays, including THE GARDENER, which was produced and broadcast on Cinemax. He has adapted crime fiction writer Jim Thompson's novel, KING BLOOD, into a feature length screenplay.

As a theatrical producer Trules has presented theater, dance, and live performance in Chicago, New York, and LA, also for the last 30 years. As founder and Artistic Director of LA’s SPOKEN WORD FESTIVAL (SWF), a non-profit, multi-cultural arts organization which produces and presents multi-disciplinary performance work to the inner-city, underserved LA community, Trules has produced 4 seasonal arts festivals in Los Angeles since 1990. He produced SOLO/LA in 1995 at CBS Studios and SANTA MONICA FESTIVAL '91, bringing together groups such as the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Latins Anonymous, and Cold Tofu for a two day multi-cultural celebration of the performing arts for the City of Santa Monica. Receiving funding from the NEA, the California Arts Council, the LA Cultural Affairs Department, and the California Community Foundation, Trules produced WORD/LA, AN ORAL RESPONSE TO THE RODNEY KING VIOLENCE in 1992, a 5 site, City-wide program in response to 1992's civil unrest, which was documented and broadcast on KCET, Los Angeles' PBS affiliate.

In 2002, as a Fulbright Scholar in Malaysia, Trules began developing a new travel website, “e-travels with e. trules”. A literary, graphic, and pictorial site of “travelogues, rants, and reports from around the world”, the site is a popular internet destination for travelers, both real and vicarious. Ranging in stories from Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1969 (shown in a humorous flash movie technique), to a cremation ceremony in Bali with Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon in 2000, to visiting with the Incas and llamas in Machu Pichu in 2003, to seeing images of Osama Bin Laden on the screensavers of his Malaysian colleagues shortly after 9/11, “e-travels” is an idiosyncratic and colorful site, establishing Trules as a internet presence in the era of cyberspace and blogs. He has also been a travel correspondent for NPR’s popular travel show, “The Savvy Traveler”.

See links to his various websites, all listed on the left menu at “erictrules.com”: http://www.erictrules.com/

The LA Times has said about Trules' work: "Trules is an original. He turns his vivid writing into dark/comic lacerations building to the cosmic. His work reverberates with grit."

And the Edinburgh Scotsman: "Trules is an accomplished writer; he has both a feel for contemporary idiom and a poetic imagination that echoes the great American playwrights."

GRANTS, AWARDS, LECTURES, and CONFERENCES:

1975,76: CETA Grant, Chicago, IL,

1975-77: Illinois Arts Council grants

1979, 81, & 82: NEA Arts Exposure grant

1980: NEA Expansion Arts grant

1981 & 82: NEA Theater Program grants

1983: NEA Special Constituencies (Deaf, Senior, & Handicapped)

1980-182: New York State Council on the Arts

1991: Brody Grant from the California Community Foundation

1991: Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department (LACAD) grant for WORD/LA

1991-95: California Arts Council grants

1991: NEA Inter-Arts grant for the MCSWF: "New Projects"

1991: California Council on the Humanities "Challenge Match" grant

1992: National Poetry Film and Video Festival Award Winner

1992: Western States Regional Media Arts Fellowship

1992: Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award Winner

1994: LACAD grant for SOLO/LA

1994: LA County Music and Performing Arts Commission grant

1995: Pioneer Fund grant for THE POET AND THE CON

1996: Edwin & Catherine Davis Grant for THE POET AND THE CON

1999: USC Phi Kappa Phi "Faculty Recognition Award"

2002: Fulbright Scholar to Malaysia

2004: USC Distinguished Lecture Series, “What Matters to Me and Why”

2005: 12^th International Conference on Learning, Granada Spain: “Personal Voice Storytelling Bridges the Global Divide, Changing the World One Story at a Time”

2006: Speaker at the American Leadership Academy, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

2008-13: Senior Fulbright Specialist in American Studies (Theatre)