John Gould Rubin is Artistic Director of The Private Theatre and former co Artistic Director (with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz) and Executive Director of LAByrinth Theater Company.
DIRECTOR: For The Private Theatre he directed Rocco, Chelsea, Adriana, Sean, Claudia, Gianna and Alex, last Spring, a devised project inspired by the political polarization of America. Also, for The Private Theatre he directed a dramatically explicit deconstruction of Strindberg’s one-act Playing with Fire, staged at The Box (the notoriously sexual cabaret) and the incendiary, sold-out, 2010, site-specific production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler staged in a 19th c townhouse for twenty-five people per night.
He conceived, developed, produced and directed Turn Me Loose, a dramatization of the comedy, activism and life of Dick Gregory with Joe Morton starring as the legendary black comedian/Activist, which premiered off-Broadway (and for which Mr. Rubin was a finalist for the Joe Calloway Award from the SDC for Best Direction of 2016) which he remounted last season at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and earlier at the Wallis Annenberg Theater Center in LA.
Other projects include American Buffalo with Treat Williams and Stephen Adly Guirgis and Outside Mullingar with Michael Hayden and Mary Bacon both for the Dorset Theatre Festival, the premiere of Michael Ricigliano’s Queen For A Day with David Proval and Vinnie Pastore off-Broadway and an environmental production of The Cherry Orchard for The Actors Studio with Ellen Burstyn in which he surrounded the audience with the action of the play; Little Doc, with Adam Driver at Rattlestick and The Importance of Being Earnest, with Nick Wyman (as Lady Bracknell) and Gabe Ebert. Mr. Rubin directed I, Peer, a re imagining of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt for the International Ibsen Festival at The National Theatre of Norway. For LAByrinth he directed the premieres of Philip Roth in Khartoum and Penalties & Interest (both as part of Public/LAB at The Public Theater); STopless; The Trail of Her Inner Thigh by Erin Cressida Wilson; John Patrick Shanley’s A Winter Party; and co- created and directed two devised pieces: Dreaming in Tongues; and Mémoire.
He also directed an environmental production of Mother Courage for The Harold Clurman Lab which also produced his two-theater production of The Seagull, and he directed a multimedia, stage adaptation of Double Indemnity with Michael Hayden for The Old Globe in San Diego; Riding the Midnight Express, Billy Hayes’ personal tale of imprisonment and escape in Turkey (memorialized in the film “Midnight Express”) at the Edinburgh Festival, off-Broadway and at the Soho
Theater in London; the Off-Broadway production of The Fartiste, a musical he also premiered for The Private Theatre in 2006 at the New York International Fringe Festival (winner of Outstanding Musical award); Jack’s Back, a new musical about Jack the Ripper; Open Marriage (a site-specific, one-woman show about Elsie Clews Parsons at Ventfort Hall, in Lenox, Mass., in co-production with Shakespeare & Co.); and In the Daylight at the McGinn-Cazale. He wrote (and played Ivan Boesky in) The Predators’ Ball (collaborating with Karole Armitage and David Salle) for the Teatro Comunale in Florence, Italy, and at BAM’s Next Wave Festival. Mr. Rubin also directed the film, Almost Home, for Trigger Street Independent, which was presented at The Berkshire Film Festival.
Other projects co-created or directed include The Erotica Project at The Public Theatre and HERE; Trial By Water by Qui Nguyen for Ma-Yi; Blood in the Sink at Urban Stages; both A Matter Of Choice and NAMI for Partial Comfort; The Tempest, A Delicate Balance, A Bright Room Called Day by Tony Kushner, Nothing is the End of the World (by Bekah Brunstetter,) Pericles, Censored on Final Approach, Six Passionate Women (by Mario Fratti,) The Shape of Things (by Neil LaBute,) The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Maria Irene Fornés’ Fefu and her Friends, David Gow’s Relative Good, Kindertransport, Arabian Nights, Rinne Groff’s The Ruby Sunrise, Dark of the Moon, Rebecca Gilman’s The Land of Little Horses; Frank McGuiness’ Factory Girls; Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Three Birds Alighting on a Field, Ivanov, The Crucible, Richard Nelson’s Franny’s Way, David Mamet’s Boston Marriage, Picnic, Israel Horvitz’ North Shore Fish, Reza de Wet’s Three Sisters, Two and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead for the Stella Adler Conservatory; a radical Hamlet with seven Hamlets for Columbia’s MFA Program, and he has directed for both EST’s and Naked Angel’s Marathons.
He is presently preparing The Private Theatre’s production of A Doll House. He will also direct Michael Ricigliano’s play, Godless with Elizabeth Rodriguez and Harry Lennix, and Joy Behar’s play, Middle Village Crisis. He will also direct a radical new version of King Lear, with Joe Morton, in February at the Wallis Annenberg Center in LA in the Fall of 2021.
PRODUCER: For LAByrinth, (former co-Artistic and Executive Director of and presently on the Board of Directors,) he produced Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, at Center Stage/NY, Off-Broadway (two Drama Desk noms.), at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival (Fringe First Award), at The Donmar Warehouse, and at The Arts Theatre on the West End in London (Olivier Award nomination.) He created, produced and directed Turn Me Loose to sold out houses and universal rave reviews off-Broadway (for which he was a finalist for
the Joseph Calloway Award.) He also produced Our Lady of 121st Street at LAByrinth, and off-Broadway; John Patrick Shanley’s play, Dirty Story at LAByrinth; and the tour of Travis Preston’s production of Macbeth, with Stephen Dillane playing all the roles accompanied by a jazz trio, at the Almeida Theater in London, the Sydney Theater in Australia, and in New Zealand. He is presently producing, Rinse, Repeat, Domenica Feraud’s harrowing play about eating disorders at Signature Theatre.
ACTOR: As an actor, Mr. Rubin appeared at The Public Theater/NYSF in the SPF production of The Sacrifices directed by Sam Gold; at Second Stage in John Patrick Shanley’s play, Cellini; on Broadway opposite Glenn Close and Gene Hackman in Death and The Maiden, under Mike Nichol’s direction; in the title role of Moliere’s Don Juan at The Mark Taper Forum in L.A. under the direction of Travis Preston (for which he received the DramaLogue Award in Acting); as Jacques in John Tillinger’s production of As You Like It at the Long Wharf; in Martin Crimp’s adaptation of The Misanthrope, at CSC with Uma Thurman and Roger Rees; as well as in the lead role of Mr. Crimp’s Play With Repeats, at New York Stage and Film with Frances McDormand.
M.F.A. Yale School of Drama
Faculty: Stella Adler Studio, ESPA at Primary Stages and the Columbia University MFA Film School. Former faculty: SUNY Purchase, Harvard Summer School, Fordham University, and Playwrights Horizons theater school at NYU.
