David Wheeler Biography

This past year David Wheeler staged Shaw's Man and Superman at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, where he has been resident director since 1984, directing Waiting For Godot, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, What the Butler Saw, Heartbreak House, Misalliance, The Caretaker, The Homecoming, True West, Angel City, The Day Room, Cannibal Masque, Gillette, David Mamet's adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Tanya, Two by Korder: Fun and Nobody, and The Boys Next Door. On Broadway he directed Richard III with Al Pacino and The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, for which Mr. Pacino won a Tony Award. As Associate Director of the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, he staged O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet. He was invited by Ralph Waite's Los Angeles Actors Theatre to stage Joseph Hindy's first play, Every Good Boy Does Fine. From 1963 to 1975, as Artistic Director of The Theatre Company of Boston, he directed over 80 productions, among them seven by Pinter, five by Brecht, four by Albee, four by Beckett, two by O'Neill, and numerous works by new writers such as Ed Bullins, John Hawkes, Adrienne Kennedy, and Sam Shepard, with actors including Paul Benedict, John Cazale, Stockard Channing, Blythe Danner, Robert DeNiro, Robert Duvall, Hector Elizondo, Paul Guilfoyle, Lance Henriksen, Joseph Hindy, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Lisa Richards, Jon Voight, Ralph Waite, and James Woods. Mr. Wheeler was Assistant Director to Jose Quintero in New York during the great "O'Neill years." Mr. Wheeler's film adaptation of Heathcote Williams' play The Local Stigmatic with Al Pacino and Paul Guilfoyle has been presented at various colleges and museums. At U.C. Irvine in California he recently directed The Crucible. Last fall, at the Berkeley Playhouse, he directed The Heiress, which also played in Tucson and Phoenix this winter after winning six Bay Area DramaLogue awards. In Massachusetts, he has had the pleasure of directing both Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.