User:Elleruffin/sandbox

Odell Ruffin, born in Ann Arbor Michigan and raised in Michigan and Maryland, Georges County, Maryland, is the Founder and CEO of Ruffin Entertainment, a theater, film and media production company dedicated to education through entertainment. Ruffin’s career began as a student at Eastern Michigan University, majoring in Journalism and Theater Arts. During his tenure as a student at Eastern, he acted in, wrote and produced numerous stage productions and short and feature films.

Ruffin attended the prestigious Stella Adler Acting Conservatory in New York. He has since appeared in numerous acting competitions, theater productions, television shows and films including: The Manhattan Monologue Slam at the historic Nuyoricans Poets Café, Sideways by Miguel Piñero,The Big Dance, Theatre Studios, Inc., Rule No. 2, The Game of Life, Evangel Cathedral Church, Pharaoh Jones, 40 Acres and a Mule Independent Films, Law and Order (NBC), and The Sopranos (HBO), The Making of a Modern Folk Hero by Martin Zimmerman, and Suicide by Tai French.

Ruffin’s signature artistic mechanism - employing a diverse range of disciplines within each theatre production – is noted in his recent works. In 2009, he wrote, produced and directed the world premiere of A Tupac Tale, a theatrical journey through the life and career of Tupac Shakur. In April 2010, Ruffin wrote and directed FACES: Shades of Survival, using an artistic lens to examine the impact of breast cancer on the lives, relationships, hopes and dreams of young women of color. Ruffin was commissioned to direct a second production of FACES by the Bowie State University Theatre Department in late 2010.

Ruffin has been called “an urban filmmaker favorite,” and “one of the most charismatic voices of his generation” and was recognized as one of “the DMV’s Top 30 under 30” by WKYS 93.9 in 2011. Ultimately, Ruffin hopes to broadly expand his reach as an actor, playwright and producer, and become a true “Renaissance Man” of his generation.