CURRENT RESIDENCE: Chicago, Illinois
YEAR JOINED ENSEMBLE: 2012
POSITION: Actor, Director, Playwright; Teaching Artist
AMERICAN BLUES THEATER CREDITS
(UPCOMING) 2025 It’s a Wonderful Life: Live in Chicago!
Actor: The Reclamation of Madison Hemings; It’s a Wonderful Life: Live in Chicago! – Jeff Award nomination Production-midsize & Jeff Award nomination Short Run; Fences – Jeff Award nomination for Ensemble, Jeff Award nomination for Production-midsize; Six Corners; Dutchman/TRANSit; Looking Over the President’s Shoulder – Black Theater Alliance Award; Waiting for Lefty.
Director / Assistant Director: Five Presidents; Blue Ink Festival – Your Regularly Scheduled Program, Uhuru, Cane, Origin Story, Mother of Pearl, and The Reapers of Woodbrook Avenue; multiple plays in The Ripped Festival; #Enough (Plays to End Gun Violence)
Playwright: The Ripped Festival, Lion
Teaching Artist: The Lincoln Project in CPS
ABOUT MANNY
Manny Buckley is a Chicago based director, actor and writer. Manny last directed August Wilson’s Seven Guitars, which won the 2024 Non Equity Jeff Award for best production, at City Lit Theatre. Other directing credits include Driving Miss Daisy, The Bad Seed (Jedlicka Performing Arts Center) Kingdom, an audio play (Broken Nose Theatre); and The One Minute Play Festival. Additional acting credits outside of American Blues include work with Chicago Shakespeare, Steppenwolf, Goodman, Court, Victory Gardens, Chicago Dramatists, Next Theater, House Theatre, Shattered Globe Theater, Cincinnati Children’s Theatre and Studio Theatre. Film and TV credits: Proven Innocent, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, and commercials and industrial films for the US Navy, Northwestern University and The Onion. Mr. Buckley has received nominations for the Joseph Jefferson Award, the Helen Hayes Award and the 3Arts Award; he is the recipient of both a Black Theater Alliance Award and Black Excellence Award.
FUN FACT
In 2017 Manny performed for, and met esteemed Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Washington, D.C.