John Gould Rubin is a founding member of The Private Theatre for which he currently serves as Artistic Director and with which he will direct two shows next season: Royston Coppenger’s new translation of A Doll House and Rocco, Chelsea, Adriana, Sean, Claudia, Gianna and Alex, a performance he’s been devising for six years on the political polarization of America as seen through the Consciousness of Conflict-Insight theories of Bernard Lonergan. Also, for The Private Theatre he directed a radically explicit deconstruction of Strindberg’s one-act Playing with Fire, staged at The Box (the notoriously sexual night club) and the 2010 site-specific production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler staged in a 19th c townhouse for 25 people per night. He recently remounted Turn Me Loose, at the Wallis Annenberg Theater Center in LA, a dramatization of the comedy, activism and life of Dick Gregory with Joe Morton starring as the legendary black comedian/Activist, which he premiered off-B’way (and for which Mr. Rubin was a finalist for the Joe Calloway Award from the SDC for Best Direction of 2016.) Turn Me Loose, which Mr. Rubin conceived, developed, produced and directed will be remounted at Arena Stage, in Washington, DC before returning to New York for it’s Broadway debut. Other recent projects include American Buffalo with Treat Williams and Stephen Adly Guirgis last summer and Outside Mullingar with Michael Hayden and Mary Bacon two seasons ago 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. Mr. Rubin directed I, Peer, a re-imagining of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, which he presented at the International Ibsen Festival at The National Theatre of Norway and developed at The Old Vic in London; John served as Co-Artistic (with John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Executive Director of LAByrinth Theater Company, for which 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. Other projects co-created or directed include The Erotica Project at The Public Theatre; 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; Censored on Final Approach, Six Passionate Women by Mario Fratti, The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute, The Resistable 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 7 Hamlets for Columbia’s MFA Program, and he has directed for both EST’s and Naked Angel’s Marathons. He recently 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 multi-media, 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.); Little Doc at Rattlestick, The Importance of Being Ernest for Twin Tiers Theatre; 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.
(Producer) John Gould Rubin is a founding member of The Private Theatre for which he currently serves as Artistic Director. He is the former co-Artistic and Executive Director of LAByrinth Theater Company, for which 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; 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.
(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; in Martin Crimp’s adaptation of The Misanthrope, with Uma Thurman and Roger Rees; as well as in the lead role of Mr. Crimp’s Play With Repeats, with Frances McDormand.
M.F.A.: Yale School of Drama
Faculty: Stella Adler Studio, ESPA at Primary Stages and the Columbia Film School. Former faculty: SUNY Purchase, Harvard Summer School, Fordham University, and the Playwrights Horizons theater school at NYU.
As of July 2018.