CAREY ELIZABETH PERLOFF
Carey Perloff is an internationally acclaimed director, producer, playwright and artistic director who has been providing leadership in the American theater for almost thirty years. Her directing and writing work has been seen across the country and internationally. Perloff served as Artistic Director of CSC Repertory in New York from 1988- 1992 and of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco from 1992- 2018. Accomplishments at A.C.T. include: rebuilding the earthquake-damaged Geary Theater and creating a new multi-venue performance space, the Strand, to provide a home for new work, new artists and new audiences in an underserved community in SF; reanimating A.C.T.'s acclaimed MFA program in Acting; creating a diverse Core Company of actors and a muscular repertoire of re-imagined classics and bold new work; creating international collaborations with a special focus on Canada and Asian-Pacific Rim work; raising a $35 million endowment; producing and directing eleven plays by Tom Stoppard in close collaboration with the author, and collaborating with some of the finest theater artists in the world including Olympia Dukakis, David Strathairn, Wendell Pierce, Bill Irwin, Ark Malik, Peter Reigert, Robert Wilson, Peter Brook, Morris Panych, Kim Collier, Basil Twist, Timberlake Wertenbaker, David Lang, Tracy Chapman, Colm Toibin, Khaled Hosseni and many more. Perloff writes frequently on arts and culture, gender equity, arts education, actor training and how to create a more artist-centric non-profit theater.
EMPLOYMENT
June 1992-2018: Artistic Director, AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER
Nov. 1986-May, 1992: Artistic Director, CSC REPERTORY, CLASSIC STAGE COMPANY.
1987-1992: Adjunct Professor, Dramatic Writing Program, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.
1990: Site Reporter for the NEA/Theater Program.
July 1983-1986: Teaching Artist, LINCOLN CENTER INSTITUTE, NY.
Nov. 1981-1986: Auditor, NEW YORK STATE COUNCIL ON THE ARTS, Theater and Presenting Programs
June 1982-July 1983: Casting Assistant, NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL, Rosemarie Tischler, Casting Director, Sept. 1981-June 1982: Program Manager, INTERNATIONAL THEATER INSTITUTE, NY
EDUCATION
Post-Graduate
Fulbright Fellowship to St. Anne's College, Oxford University (M.A. English Literature) (grant awarded by the ITT International Fellowship)
Undergraduate
B.A. Stanford University, Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude
Major: Classics and Comparative Literature
Minor: Theater and Dramatic Literature (Overseas: Stanford Overseas Study in Florence)
Honorary Doctorates, University of San Francisco, 2017; American Conservatory Theater 2018
SELECTED DIRECTING CREDITS
Recent:
A Thousand Splendid Suns (Ursula Rami Sarna from Khaled Hoseini's novel), A.C.T., Theater Calgary (Best Production 2016), the Old Globe, Seattle Rep, the Grand Theatre, London, Ontario, Seattle Repertory Theater, Arena Stage. Hamlet (A.C.T.) starring John Douglas Thompson, Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare Theater, Calgary) starring Seana McKenna, Queens (Martyna Majok), La Jolla Playhouse,
Pale Fire (Colm Toibin), Gate Theatre, Dublin ( a version of Antigone that focused on individual response to tyranny, a time of rising global authoritarianism), Ghosts (Ibsen, trans. Paul Walsh), Seattle Repertory Theater, starring David Strathairn and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and WTF starring Uma Thurman
American Conservatory Theater favorites:
Fatherville (collective creation with Basil Twist and Stephen Buescher), Strand Theater
Monstress (Philip Kan Gotanda and Sean San Jose), Strand Theater 2015
The Tosca Project, a world premiere dance-theater piece with Val Caniparoli, A.C.T. and a Canadian tour including Theater Calgary and the Vancouver Playhouse, starring Loreena Feijoo, Pascal Molat, Rex Harrington, Dean Paul Gibson
Scorched (Wajdi Mouawad, translated by Linda Gaboriau)
Underneath the Lintel (Glen Berger), starring David Strathairn
For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again (Tremblay), Williamstown Theatre Festival and A.C.T. with Olympia Dukakis
The Orphan of Zhao (James Fenton, trans.), starring B.D. Wong, A.C.T. and the La Jolla Playhouse
Testament of Mary (Colm Toibin), starring Seana McKenna
After the War (Philip Kan Gotanda), World Premiere Commission, A.C.T. and the Sundance Playwrights Conference
Boleros for the Disenchanted (Jose Rivera), starring Rachel Ticotin and Robert Beltran
Stoppard plays:
Indian Ink (American Premiere 1998, revived in 2014 at the Roundabout Theater NYC, starring Rosemary Harris and Romola Garai and American Conservatory Theater, starring Roberta Maxwell and Brenda Meaney, The Hard Problem (American premiere), Arcadia, The Real Thing, Travesties, Rock 'N Roll, American premiere, A.C.T. and the Huntington Theater, Night and Day, Invention of Love, American premiere with James Cromwell and Jason Butler Harner
Pinter plays:
The Homecoming, The Room and Celebration (American premiere) with Peter Riegert and Diane Venora, Old Times with Pamela Reed, Graham Beckel and Michelle Morain, Mountain Language (American Premiere), CSC Repertory with Jean Stapleton and Peter Riegert, The Birthday Party, CSC Repertory with Peter Riegert and David Strathairn, revived at A.C.T. with Judith Ivey and Marco Barricelli
Musicals and Opera:
Happy End (Brecht and Weill) (Original cast album recorded at Skywalker Ranch),
Threepenny Opera (Brecht and Weill) starring Bebe Neuwirth, Anika Noni Rose, Nancy Dussault and Philip Casnoff
The Difficulty of Crossing a Field (Lang, Wellman), World premiere of commissioned opera by Pulitzer Prize-winner Lang starring Julia Migenes, with Kronos Quartet,
No for an Answer (Blitzstein), World premiere w/ A.C.T's MFA students),
Iphegenie en Tauride (Gluck), San Francisco Opera Center,
The Cave, A new music-theater video opera by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot, Vienna Festival, Hebbel Theater (Berlin), The Holland Festival, Royal Festival Hall (London), Next Wave Festival (Brooklyn Academy of Music) and Theatre du Bobigny (Paris).
E&O Line, an electronic blues opera by Anne LeBaron, workshop at Musical Theater Works.
Canadian theater: Working extensively at theaters across Canada, I have developed new work with Canadian atists as well as directing frequently at:
Stratford Festival of Canada: John Gabriel Borkman, starring Seana McKenna, Scott Wentworth and Lucy Peacock, Phedre starring Seana McKenna, Tom McCamus and Jonathan Goade, Private Lives starring Geraint Wynn-Davies and Lucy Peacock
Reimagined Classics:
I have spent much of my career reinvigorating great works from cultures around the world and from both ancient and modern times in order to illuminate our own contemporary condition and keep vigorous dramatic literature alive. Favorites include:
The Voysey Inheritance (Granville-Barker), A.C.T. and Kansas City Rep, The Government Inspector (Gogol) 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (John Ford), starring Michael Hayden, Phedre (Racine, translation by Timberlake Wertenbaker), Endgame and Play (Beckett), starring Bill Irwin, Elektra (Sophocles, in a new translation by Timberlake Wertenbaker) starring Olympia Dukakis, Getty Villa, Malibu and A.C.T., A Doll's House (Ibsen), in a new translation by Paul Walsh., The Three Sisters (Chekhov), Waiting for Godot (Beckett), Happy End (Brecht/Weill), A Mother (Congdon), a new adaptation from Gorky's Vassa Zheleznova, featuring Olympia Dukakis, Louis Zorich, Enrico IV (Pirandello),in a new translation by Richard Nelson, Misanthrope (Moliere), in a new translation by Constance Congdon, Mary Stuart (Schiller), in a new translation by Michael Feingold, music composed by David Lang and performed by Chanticleer (Huntington Theater), Hecuba (Euripides), Williamstown Theatre Festival and A.C.T. with Olympia Dukakis, Threepenny Opera (Weill, Brecht), A.C.T. with Anika Noni Rose and Bebe Neuwirth, The Rose Tattoo (Williams), A.C.T. with Kathleen Widdoes, The Tempest (Shakespeare), A.C.T. with David Strathairn, David Patrick Kelly, and Michael Tucker, Shadow Artist Larry Reed and music composed by David Lang and performed by the Kronos Quartet, Uncle Vanya (Chekhov, trans. Paul Schmidt, with Wendell Pierce), Antigone (Sophocles, trans. Timberlake Wertenbaker), with Elizabeth Pena, Creditors (Strindberg, trans. Paul Walsh), CSC Repertory, Shakuntala (Kalidasa, trans. Barbara Stoler Miller), Candide (Len Jenkin, after Voltaire), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Brecht, trans. Ralph Manheim), CSC Repertory starring John Turturro, The Tower of Evil (Dumas père, trans. Michael Feingold), CSC Repertory with Kathleen Widdoes., Happy Days (Beckett) with Charlotte Rae & The Collection (Pinter), Mark Taper Forum, Don Juan of Seville (de Molina, trans. Lynne Alvarez), Phaedra Britannica (Tony Harrison, after Racine), Chautauqua Institute and CSC Repertory with Bob Gunton and Caroline Lagerfelt, Electra (Ezra Pound, after Sophocles), CSC Repertory with Pamela Reed, Nancy Marchand, and Joe Morton, Skin of Our Teeth (Wilder), St. Joan of the Stockyards (Brecht), The Silver Tassie (O'Casey), Soho Rep Theater, NY. Greek (Berkoff) L.A. Theater Works, Best Production of 1983 (L.A. Drama Critics Circle), The Bed Bug (Mayakovsky)
PLAYS
Edgardo or White Fire, commissioned and developed by the Williamstown Theater Festival 2021-22, Finalist O'Neill Playwrights Conference 2022.
If God Were Blue, written on a Bogliasco Foundation Writing Residency in 2018, developed by NYSF, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Playmaker's Rep (Vivienne Benesch, director), and Roundabout Theater 2022
The Fit , premiered at SF Playhouse, Bill English, director, June 2019, developed at Kansas City Rep, Williamstown Theater Festival 2017 (Davis McCallum, dir.), NYSF, (Daniel Aukin, dir.)
Kinship, World Premiere at the Theatre de Paris, October 2014, directed by Domenique Borg, starring Isabelle Adjani, Vittoria Scognamigila and Neils Schneider, American premiere at Williamstown Theater Festival Summer 2015, starring Cynthia Nixon, directed by Jo Bonney, developed at Perry Mansfield Playwrights Lab and NYSF, Kilroys List of best new plays by women 2015
Higher, premiered at A.C.T. 2013, directed by Mark Rucker, winner of the 2012 Blanche and Irving Laurie Theater Visions Award for Best New American Play, developed at NYSF, the Contemporary Jewish Museum SF and the DNA Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, directed by Christopher Ashley
Waiting for the Flood, workshopped at NYSF (Chay Yew, dir.), Roundabout Theater, SF Playhouse (Maria Mileaf, dir.) and CenterStage, Baltimore (Daniella Topol, dir.)
Luminescence Dating, Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Commissioning Award, World Premiere at Ensemble Studio Theater, New York (Will Pomerantz, dir.), SF premiere, Magic Theater, SF, 2010 (Mark Rucker, dir.), Winner of Bay Area Critics Circle Best Original Play, published by Dramatists Play Services 2010
The Rowboat Widow (Orchard Project 2014)
A Christmas Carol (adapted with Paul Walsh) World Premiere 2006 Geary Theater. Performed 2006 to the present at the Geary
The Colossus of Rhodes (An Epic of Greed, Vaudeville and Higher Education). Premiered at White Barn Theater, Westport, CT, August 2001 (Loy Arcenas, dir.) Nominated by the American Theater Critics Circle for Best New Plays of 2001. O'Neill Playwrights Conference 2000, SF Premiere at A.C.T. 2003 (Robin Phillips, dir.). Finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn prize, 2001
PUBLICATIONS
Books:
PINTER AND STOPPARD: A DIRECTOR'S VIEW (Bloomsbury Methuen 2022)
BEAUTIFUL CHAOS: A LIFE IN THE THEATER (City Lights Press, 2015, Selected as San Francisco's “One City One Book”)
Ezra Pound's ELEKTRA: The Acting Script with an Introduction and Program Notes by Carey Perloff (NY: New Directions Press, 1990)
KINSHIP (A New Play), Paris: l'Avant-Scene Theatre, 2015
Articles (selected):
·“The Wisdom of Elders in Covid”, Clyde Fitch Report, 2021
·“Hath Not a Woman Eyes?How a Woman Shylock Changed the Merchant of Venice”, American Theater Magazine 2020
·“Diary of an American in Finland”, New York Times, November 17, 2020
·“Thinking about the Future of the American Theater”, Clyde Fitch Report, 2020
·“Tragedy Today”, PMLA 2014
· “Seven Avenues Towards the Heart of a Mystery”: an Introduction to Mac Wellman's Difficulty of Crossing a Field, Theater Magazine,
Yale University, Volume 27, 1998
·“How Greek Is It: Producing Greek Tragedy in the Nineties” Theater Magazine, Yale University, Fall 1994
·“ Brecht and his Collaborators”, Theater Magazine, Yale University, Summer 1994
·“Happy Days in Rehearsal”in Directing Beckett, Lois Oppenheim, editor
“Pinter in Rehearsal: from The Birthday Party to Mountain Language” in Pinter at Sixty (Indiana University Press, 1993)
·“Film is Evil, Radio is Good...or Could Be”,Theater Journal (Johns Hopkins Press), October 1991
·“Keeping up the Mask: Some Observations on Directing Pinte”r, The Pinter Review, 1989
·“A Conversation about Pinter” (with Susan Merritt), The Pinter Review, 1989
Lectures (selected):
· Segal Talk on Pinter and Stoppard: A Director's View (CUNY) November 2021
· Segal Talk on the Future of American Theater (CUNY) May 20, 2021
· “Classic Conversations” CSC Repertory, 2022
· TEDXTalk “Why Theater Matters” 2014
· Aspen Institute, Keynote Speaker with John Guare on the Current Stage of the American Theater 2010
· Numerous Graduation Addresses including Stanford Classics Department 2014, UC Department of Theater, Phi Beta KAppy Society
· Hecuba and History (J. Paul Getty Museum), June 2000
· How Greek Is It: Producing Greek Tragedy in the Nineties (1993 Maynard Mack Lecture, Yale University)
· Pinter in Rehearsal: from The Birthday Party to Mountain Language (Keynote Address, The Pinter Conference, OSU 1991)
· Translating the Classics: A Practical Approach (The Classics in Contemporary Culture: A Symposium), UCSD, 1990.
· Phaedra in India: Transposing the Classics (Chautauqua Institute, July 1989)
AWARDS
· 2019 Craig Noel Outstanding Direction of a Play, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Old Globe
· 2018 Honorary MFA in Acting, American Conservatory Theater
· 2018 Bogliasco Writing Residency
· 2017, Honorary Doctorate, University of San Francisco
· 2017 Eugene O'Neill/Tao House Distinguished Artist Award
· 2017 Opera Parallele Distinguished Artist of the Year
· 2016 Best Production, Theatre Calgary, for A Thousand Splendid Suns
· 2015 “One City One Book” recipient for BEAUTIFUL CHAOS: A LIFE IN THE THEATER
· 2012 Blanche and Irving Laurie Theater Visions Award for Best New American Play for Higher
· 2011 Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, Government of France
· 2009 Best Original Script, Bay Area Theater Critics, for Luminescence Dating
· 2002 The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist and American Theatre Critics Circle Award nomination for The Colossus of Rhodes
· 2000 Elliot Norton Prize for Best Production for Mary Stuart (Huntington Theater)
· 1999 Lucille Lortel Award to CSC Repertory for 30 years of excellence in the field
· 1997 Jujamcyn Award ($50,000) to A.C.T. for Creative Contribution to the Field
· Dramalogue Award, Best Production (Williams, The Rose Tattoo) A.C.T. 1996
· 1994 Koret Israel Prize
· Dramalogue Award, Best Production (Pinter, The Collection) Mark Taper Forum, 1989
· OBIE Award for Artistic Excellence/CSC Repertory, 1988
· Dramalogue Award for Outstanding Direction for The Collection (Mark Taper Forum)
· TCG Observership Grant, awarded November 1986
· National Theater Conference Award of $1,000 to a Theatrician with Outstanding Career Promise, January 1987
· L.A. Drama Critics Award (Best Production), Greek
· U.S./International Theater Institute Representative to Theater Der Welt, Stuttgart, 1987
· Citation of Honor from the League of Professional Theater Women, NY
ADVISORY COMMITTEES
· Board of Trustees, The Hermitage Foundation, Sarasota Florida
· Etant Donnés French-American Fund for the Performing Arts Artistic Committee
· Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays
· Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Committee
· California Institute of the Arts Design & Production Portfolio Review
· Member, Women's Forum West
· Selection Panel, Fund for New American Plays