Eric Trules

ERIC TRULES is a native of New York City and has been a working professional in the performing arts for over 35 years. He was a 2002 Fulbright Scholar to Malaysia, an Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award winner, and a USC Phi Kappa Phi “Faculty Recognition Award” winner in 1999. After graduating cum laude from the University of Buffalo, he began as a professional modern dancer and choreographer in Chicago, co-founding Mo Ming, the nationally renowned dance-theater and performing arts center. He then returned to New York, where he founded its resident clown troupe, the Cumeezi Bozo Ensemble, a company that was funded by National Endowment for the Arts, appeared at Lincoln Center and Town Hall, and toured Holland, Switzerland and France in 1979. He also ran for Mayor of NYC as clown candidate, Gino Cumeezi, and finished 5th out of 4 candidates.

Since moving to Los Angeles in 1983, Eric has acted in Hollywood theatre, tv, and film productions, sold a screenplay that was broadcast on Cinemax, edited and published "Euphonia, A Los Angeles Journal for Men", presented performance poetry on KCRW and at Beyond Baroque, and directed-produced a feature length, autobiographical documentary film, THE POET AND THE CON, which played at international film festivals and theatrically for 4 months in LA at the Laemmle Theatres. He also wrote and performed several original one-man “solo performance” shows, toured his work nationally, and to the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, where he was nominated for best show of the 1988 Fringe. Eric is also founder and director of the Spoken Word Festival, a non-profit arts organization dedicated to bringing live spoken word to underserved communities in LA. In 1991, Eric produced SANTA MONICA FESTIVAL '91, "a multi-cultural celebration of the performing arts" for the City of Santa Monica, and in 1993, he produced "WORD/LA, An Oral Response to the Rodney King Violence", a 5 event, city-wide project in response to the LA "uprising", funded by the NEA, California Arts Council, the LA Cultural Affairs Department, and the California Community Foundation. Documentaries were broadcast on Pacifica Radio's KPFK and on LA's PBS affiliate, KCET. In 1995 he produced SOLO/LA at CBS Studios which was also funded by federal, state, & city organizations. “Trules”, as he is know to students, has taught Improvisation and Theatre Games at USC since 1986, Solo Performance since 1993, and a Freshman Seminar called "Self Expression and the Arts" since 1994. Being an artist has led him around the entire globe, and he met his wife on the mythical island of Bali. All his classes focus on self expression and creativity, and Eric believes that college can be more than only the acquisitioin of knowledge and the preparation for a vocational carrer, but also about the discovery of oneself, one's voice, and one's passion. He teaches ways of thinking and living outside the box, following one's own calling, and taking the road less travelled. He sees gardening as a metaphor for teaching, attempting to plant seeds that that he hopes will grow into strapping new trees and beautiful new plants and flowers, long after the college and classroom experience. Please see more on his website: http://www.erictrules.com