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Julia Devine


Lecturer of English & Theatre

Julia Devine is a cultural organizer, creative leader, and interdisciplinary arts practitioner with over 20 years of experience as a performer, director, teacher, writer, musician, and nonprofit manager. She is a lecturer of acting and directing in the theatre department at SUNY Plattsburgh. Recent productions with the college include directing and co-creating an original performance piece on outer space entitled this is how we walk on the moon, co-directing 9 to 5 The Musical! at the Strand Center for the Arts, which honored local working women, and directing a new multilingual version of Our Town by Thornton Wilder (with Spanish translations by Nilo Cruz), which featured the Plattsburgh State Gospel Choir and Fuerza, the Black and Latinx student union.

Active in local community development, Julia co-founded Outside Art: Plattsburgh Public Art Project, now responsible for producing over 18 murals. She is also a financial coach for artists with Minerva Financial Arts. She led the former Center for Community Engagement at SUNY Plattsburgh where she directed a site-specific version of Topdog/Underdog; she also won a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grant to produce and direct a community-wide reading festival celebrating Louise Erdrich’s The Round House in partnership with the Akwesasne Library and Cultural Center. Her work in cultural development earned her a National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellowship in association with the Kresge Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Public Policy and Practice. Julia received her M.F.A. in Theatre from Harvard University’s Institute for Advanced Theatre Training in association with the American Repertory Theatre and Moscow Art Theatre School. 

She has served professional apprenticeships with the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia and Arena Stage in Washington, DC, and co-founded the former Crescendo Theatre Company in Philadelphia. She has also worked professionally as an actress (film, stage, and commercials) in Washington, DC, Toronto, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Moscow and Los Angeles and as a musician/composer (piano and accordion).

She is co-founder of Famous Letter Writer, an interdisciplinary pop arts collective. They make artisanal pop music, experimental cinema, and produce creative experiences and events at the intersection of public humanities and pop culture. Their first record, Warhola, premiered through American Songwriter, was featured nationally on NPR’s Songs of the Week, and was named one of the best records of 2020 by Burlington’s Seven Days. Their short films have screened internationally, and they were awarded the North Country Filmmaker Award by the Snowtown Film Festival. They recently won a 2023 New York State Council on the Arts Support for Artists grant with the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts for their next project DADAMAMA.

Combining a unique background in arts and cultural leadership, finance, conceptual community engagement, and performance, Julia helps her students become effective communicators, writers, leaders, artists, and citizens. Julia lives in Plattsburgh with her husband, three sons, daughter, cat, fish, and frogs.

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