Brian Rhinehart is not exaggerating when he says that he owes his entire career to the first course he took at UF, Dr. Sidney Homan’s graduate Shakespeare class. Of Dr. Homan’s class he describes that what he loved about it was that “it was not a conventional course; it was performative rather than strictly academic. We analyzed text through performance.” Soon after this unconventional and inspirational course, Brian and Dr. Homan formed a bond that resulted in eleven productions and eighteen years of collaboration. He also speaks enthusiastically of Dr. Norman Holland, who greatly influenced his education in the area of psychoanalysis and theatre. After completing his PhD examinations, and with a dissertation still to write, Brian left UF and enrolled in the Actors Studio Drama School at The New School University in Greenwich Village. Earning an MFA in Directing that ultimately informed his PhD, Brian then completed his dissertation on comedy acting entitled All Joking Aside: Comedy and the Method. He is currently working with Dr. Homan on a book publication.
Since 1997, Brian has worked as a freelance director in Florida and New York City and has achieved many accomplishments in his field. Each summer he works with the German company “Forum for Arts and Culture” on their annual production in Heersum, Germany, entitled Heersumer Sommerspiele. He notes that recently a production he was involved in there entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the most helicopters in a theatrical production. In 2001, he was named “Best Director” of the New York International Fringe Festival for Einstein’s Dreams, from 2002–2005 he was a Resident Artist of the Kraine Theater in New York City, and was a member of the 2006 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. In 2007 Brian assistant-directed the first national Broadway tour of the musical The Wedding Singer, as well as its Atlantic City production at Harrah’s Casino in 2008.
As an actor he has performed in over fifty productions, and the plays he has written or co-written have been seen in the New York International Fringe Festival and in a variety of Off-Off Broadway venues. Dr. Rhinehart is an internationally published scholar on the subject of contemporary German theatre. He is on the faculty of The Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University and The City University of New York (Baruch College).