BIO
David Kaplan stages plays around the world with professional companies in indigenous languages and settings.

Mr. Kaplan is curator and co-founder of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival. He has staged Williams' plays worldwide. In 2003 Mr. Kaplan directed Tennessee Williams’ The Eccentricities of a Nightingale in Cantonese at the Hong Kong Repertory Theater. In 1993 he directed and designed the Russian premiere of Suddenly Last Summer, and in 2008 in Chicago, the world premiere of Williams' The Day on Which a Man Dies.

Seasons past include:a Sufi King Lear in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, performed in the Uzbek language; Genet’s The Maids in Ulaan Baator, Mongolia, performed in Mongolian; A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Buryatia, performed in the Buryat language with shamans.

In Russia Mr. Kaplan staged the first Russian productions of Auntie Mame and Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! Also in Russia: Macbeth.

Plays directed by Mr. Kaplan have appeared in 40 of the 50 United States. These include his own adaptations of Charles Finney’s The Circus Of Dr. Lao and two American operas: Stephen Foster’s Beautiful Dreamer and Gertrude Stein’s Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights.

More traditional repertory staged by Mr. Kaplan include Genet’s The Maids in New York, Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard in Los Angeles. He has staged spectacles at the Atlantic City and Las Vegas Convention Centers, the Coney Island Wax Musee, The Sarajevo Winter Festival, and a multi-ethnic celebration for Benneton in the Central Park Zoo.

Since 1979 and for more than 20 years, Mr. Kaplan has collaborated on two solo shows which he adapted and directed. The revival of Ruth Draper’s monologues performed by Patricia Norcia, The World of Ruth Draper, is a repertory in 12 languages (some of them invented) which plays for a total 9 hours. Miss Norcia performs the Draper repertory to sold out audiences at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York and has appeared in Tokyo, Munich, Rome, and London’s West End.

June Recital, Mr. Kaplan’s tribute to Mississippi writer Eudora Welty was written with and has been performed by Brenda Currin since 1980. Critically acclaimed performances throughout the United States include extended runs in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. A compact disc recording was released in 2002 with live concert performances in 2003 throughout the state of Mississippi and at the International Eudora Welty Colloquium in Rennes, France.

David Kaplan is also the author of Five Approaches to Acting (Hansen Publishing Group. Come passare dal testo alla scena is the Italian edition, Dino Audino Editore, Roma September 2003 ) He has held classes for actors since 1980. He has taught and lectured at Bard, Clark, Hofstra, NYU, Colombia, Rutgers, The University of New Mexico, The University of the South, Mississippi State University, The Siberian Academy of Fine Arts (in Russian), and the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. His professional students in New York and Los Angeles have won numerous stage awards, including the Tony. Three theater companies have formed out of Mr. Kaplan’s classes, including Artificial Intelligence, the creators of the long-running Tony N Tina’s Wedding. Mr. Kaplan holds degrees from Clark University and the Yale School of Drama. His teachers include Jan Kott, Richard Gilman, Robert Brustein, Lee Breuer, Stanley Kaufman, Lou Criss, and in Russia, Peter Monastersky.