David Kaplan
has held classes for actors since 1975. He has taught and lectured at Bard,
Clark, Hofstra, New York University, Columbia, Rutgers, the University of New
Mexico, 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.
During the
same time, he has staged plays around the world with professional companies in
indigenous languages and settings: King Lear in a Sufi interpretation 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
Buddhist Buryatia, performed in the Buryat language with traditional shamanic
imagery. In Russia, and in the Russian language, Mr. Kaplan staged the first
production of the American comic classic Auntie Mame at the 200-year-old Penza
Theater, and the first production of Tennessee Williams's Suddenly Last Summer
(the subject of a TASS documentary), as well as Shakespeare's Macbeth, both in
Samara, Russia.
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, 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, and Tina Howe's Painting Churches for the Province-town
Players. He has had the pleasure of staging spectacles at the Atlantic City Convention Center, in Las Vegas, at the Coney Island Wax Museum, and a multi-ethnic celebration
(with animals) in the Central Park Zoo.
Since 1979,
Mr. Kaplan has worked on two one-woman shows that he adapted and continues to
direct. Among them is the long-running revival of Ruth Draper's monologues performed
by Patricia Norcia. Over twenty years of rehearsals, Mr. Kaplan and Miss Norcia
have built up a repertory of fourteen Draper pieces in twelve languages (some
of them invented), which play for a total of nine hours. A portion of the
Draper repertory performs annually to sold-out audiences at Carnegie Recital
Hall in New York and has been presented in
Tokyo, Munich, Rome, and London's West End. Mr. Kaplan's tribute to Mississippi writer Eudora Welty,
Sister and Miss Lexie, has been performed by Brenda Currin since 1980 in
critically acclaimed appearances throughout the United States.
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.