Helen Manfull is a professor emerita in the School of Theatre at Penn State and a member of the board of Centre Stage. In the winter of 2011 she served as assistant to Di Trevis who directed The Beaux' Stratagem at PSU in February, 2011. Helen is both an actor and a director. Favorite acting roles include Abby in Arsenic and Old Lace which she did in three different regional theatres with her friend Peg French as Martha, Mrs. Stilson in Arthur Kopit's Wings, the title role in Brecht's Mother Courage which she
performed both at Penn State and the University of Minnesota, and Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine in which she played Maude and Betty both at Penn State and in New York. Favorite directing experiences include Caryl Churchill's Fen, Peter Barnes's Red Noses, Forty-five Minutes from Broadway by George M. Cohan, adapted by her husband, Lowell Manfull, and Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie in Bern, Switzerland. She also directed the world premiere of Paul and Virginie written by Jean Cocteau with music by Charles Kallman. In addition to its local performance it was presented at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C. and in New York.
In 1996 Helen and her husband taught for the University of Pittsburgh's Semester at Sea, an event that took them around the world. Helen has written several books. Close to her heart is her edition of Dalton Trumbo's letters, Additional Dialogue, which tells the story of the blacklist in Hollywood. It was recently recreated as a documentary, titled simply Trumbo. She also wrote In Other Words: Women Directors Speak, expanded and published by Methuen in the U.K. under the title Taking Stage: Women Directors on Directing. Helen is a member of Actors' Equity and an honorary alumna of Penn State University.