Austin Eckert

Guest Associate

Originally from Regina Saskatchewan, Austin is an internationally established actor now calling Vancouver home. A recent graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts, Austin had some success in television, but found himself employed mainly in musical theatre, being cast in productions of HAIR (Mayfield Theatre), MAMMA MIA! (Western Canada Theatre), and Beauty and the Beast (Arts Club Theatre). After some time he was cast at Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival and played on the BMO Mainstage for three consecutive seasons, appearing in productions of Macbeth, As You Like It, Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, The Winter's Tale and Shakespeare in Love.

Austin Eckert has kept himself busy in the television market, earning a LEO AWARD in 2021 for his performance as Miles Kirkland in the series Narcoleap (Best Performance By A Male In A Web Series.) Other past TV credits include; Colony, The Flash, Batwoman, The Magicians, Supernatural.

A member of Bard on the Beach's Teaching Artist faculty since 2017, Austin has collaborated in the creation and operation of several Shakespeare summer camps, day camps, workshops, talkbacks, private coachings, and Zoom events.

Taking his talents east for summer 2022, Austin will appear as Laertes in the Stratford Theatre Festival's production of Hamlet.

As a coach, he is determined to get the most mileage out of the text as possible. Austin believes that the writer's word is the most valuable tool an actor has at their disposal (We're not still performing Shakespeare after 400 plus years because of someone's clever interpretation or "choice"). In our studio we can find liberation in the specific. We realize that memorization is always taken care of once we can get the story alive and activated in our bellies.

Shakespeare didn't write his works to be solemnly read in some sterile English class, or debated over in some large hall, he wrote them to be experienced completely live and in excellent company!