Carl Cofield is an American theatre director and actor.
Carl Cofield is an American theatre director and actor.
Cofield was in the first class of the New World School of the Arts in Miami. [1] He studied for one summer at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and earned a BFA in Acting from University of Miami. [2] He earned an MFA in Directing from Columbia University in 2014.
Cofield is heavily influenced by music and hip-hop culture, citing the poetry and rhythm of Public Enemy as a key influence. [3]
Cofield was a child actor in commercials, television series, and films. He was in almost a dozen Burger King commercials starting at age four and in several Wise Cheez Doodles commercials. [4] He was on Miami Vice in 1986 and 1988, and Law & Order in 1993 and 1994, in both cases playing different characters on different episodes. He had roles on Tyler Perry's House of Payne , Mama, I Want to Sing! , and several other films and television series.
Cofield performed in several shows and toured with the Acting Company including as Henry in Henry V , and performed in multiple productions at Alabama Shakespeare Festival including Orsino in Twelfth Night [5] and Orlando in As You Like It , Shakespeare Santa Cruz as Laertes in Hamlet and Victor in Private Lives , [6] and Arena Stage including Lymon in The Piano Lesson and Acaste in The Misanthrope .
Cofield also played Morocco in The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare Theatre Company, [7] Boy Willie in The Piano Lesson at Indiana Repertory Theatre, and Barlow in Gem of the Ocean at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
He performed off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club in Ruined [8] and The Whipping Man, and at shows at Duke on 42nd and Lucille Lortel Theater.
Cofield directed The Mountaintop at Cleveland Playhouse in 2016, Disgraced at Denver Center, [9] A Raisin in the Sun at Two River Theatre, and Henry IV, Part 2 at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2017.
He directed the world premiere of One Night in Miami at Rogue Machine in Los Angeles in 2013. [10] He directed the play again at Denver Center in 2015 [11] and at Miami New Drama in 2018. [12]
He directed Radio Golf by August Wilson at Everyman Theatre, Baltimore in 2019, and Cymbeline at The Public Theater for their Mobile Unit [13] and A Raisin in the Sun at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2020.
His 2019 Twelfth Night at Yale Rep was staged with an Afrofuturistic aesthetic. [14] In 2021, he directed King Lear at St. Louis Shakespeare Festival with André De Shields in the lead role and set in Africa.
In 2018, Cofield was appointed Associate Artistic Director of Classical Theatre of Harlem. [15] In 2014, Cofield directed the 50th anniversary production of Amiri Baraka's Dutchman , as a joint venture with National Black Theatre and Classical Theatre of Harlem. [16] His 2015 production of The Tempest was set in Hispaniola. [17] Cofield directed a production of Macbeth in 2016, [18] Antigone in 2018, [19] and for his 2019 production of The Bacchae Cofield was described as taking advantage "of the outdoor setting with an electrifying staging that constantly breaks the fourth wall, bringing us mortals closer to the deities onstage." [20]
In 2021, Cofield directed Will Power's Seize the King, a re-writing of Richard III , that was described as "both monumental and minimalist." [21] Cofield's 2022 production of Twelfth Night was hailed by The New York Times as one of the best productions that year [22] and for its direction. [23]
Cofield has been involved in the development of numerous theatrical projects. In 2014, he was a director for the play festival, 48 Hours in Harlem, through the National Black Theatre. In 2017, he directed a series of six plays commissioned by the McCarter Theatre at Princeton, for the program, the "Princeton and Slavery Plays." [24] In 2019, he directed The Kept Private, a documentary theatre play, at Jeremy Davidson Storyhorse Theatre. [25]
Cofield has taught at Theatre for a New Audience, Fredonia, York College, and Baruch College. Beginning in 2015, he began to teach at The New School, and in 2019, at Columbia University.
From 2015 to 2018, Cofield taught at New York University. In 2021, Cofield was announced as the incoming Chair of Graduate Acting at New York University Tisch School of the Arts for a three-year appointment. [26]
Cofield is a Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. [27]
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn is an English theatre director. He has been the artistic director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal Haymarket. He has directed dramas for the stage, like Macbeth, as well as opera and musicals, such as Cats (1981) and Les Misérables (1985).
Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE was an English theatre, opera and film director. His obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death, a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall's "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 2018, the Laurence Olivier Awards, recognising achievements in London theatre, changed the award for Best Director to the Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director.
The Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH) is an off-Broadway professional theatre company founded in 1999 at the Harlem School of the Arts. Producing on average 2–3 productions a year as well as implementing extensive educational programming, CTH remains the only year-round theatre company operating on an Actors' Equity Association LORT contract in Harlem. Its season selections present a world repertory ranging from Euripides to Derek Walcott, featuring classical and new playwrights. Since its founding, CTH has put on over 40 productions.
Sir David Mark Rylance Waters is an English actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen having received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards. In 2016 he was included in the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. In 2017 he was made a knight by Queen Elizabeth II.
The Shakespeare Theatre Company is a regional theatre company located in Washington, D.C. The theatre company focuses primarily on plays from the Shakespeare canon, but its seasons include works by other classic playwrights such as Euripides, Ibsen, Wilde, Shaw, Schiller, Coward and Tennessee Williams. The company manages and performs in two spaces: The Michael R. Klein Theatre and Sidney Harman Hall. In cooperation with George Washington University, they run the STC Academy.
Michael Kahn is an American theater director and drama educator. He was the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. from 1986 until his retirement in 2019. He held the position of Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division of the Juilliard School from 1992 to 2006.
Bill Rauch is an American theatre director. He was named the inaugural artistic director of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center (PACNYC) at the World Trade Center in 2018. The Perelman was the final piece of the plan to revitalize the World Trade Center site and creates work which inspires hope.
Raúl Eduardo Esparza is an American actor and singer. Considered one of Broadway's most prominent leading men since the 2000s, he is best known for his Tony Award-nominated performance as Bobby in the 2006 Broadway revival of Company and for his television role as New York Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Rafael Barba in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, where he had a recurring role in Season 14 and was promoted to a series regular in Seasons 15 to 19.
Keith Powell is an American television actor, writer, director, and web series creator, known for his role as James "Toofer" Spurlock on 30 Rock, and for creating and starring in the web series Keith Broke His Leg, for which he won several Indie Series Awards in 2016.
Mark Lamos is an American theatre and opera director, producer and actor. Under his direction, Hartford Stage won the 1989 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and he has been nominated for two other Tonys. For more than 15 seasons, he has been artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse. In May 2023, he announced he will leave the post in January 2024.
Tarell Alvin McCraney is an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. He is the chair of playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble.
Robert Petkoff is an American stage actor known for his work in Shakespearean productions and more recently on the New York City musical theater stage. Petkoff has performed on Broadway, the West End, regional theatre, and done work in film and television. Petkoff was featured as "Perchik" in the Tony award-nominated 2004 revival cast of Fiddler on the Roof but is perhaps best known for his role as "Tateh" in the 2009 revival of Ragtime on Broadway. Petkoff has also provided the voices for over two dozen audiobooks, winning awards for his reading of Michael Koryta's So Cold the River. Married to actress Susan Wands, Petkoff has lived in New York City for the last twenty years, and often performs in benefit concerts for theater-district-related charities.
Daniel Fish is an American theater director based in New York City.
Brandon Jacob Uranowitz is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Adam Hochberg in the musical An American in Paris (2014–15) and Mendel Weisenbachfeld in the 2016 Broadway revival of Falsettos, both of which earned him nominations for Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. His performances in Burn This (2019) and Leopoldstadt (2022–23) earned him nominations for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play; he won the award for his performance in Leopoldstadt. His other Broadway credits include Baby, It's You! (2011), Prince of Broadway (2017), and The Band's Visit (2018).
Twelfth Night is a 1933 American Pre-Code short color film, notable as the very earliest surviving film directed by Orson Welles, then aged 17. It is a recording of the dress rehearsal of Welles's own abridged production at his alma mater, the Todd School for Boys, where he had returned to direct this adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for the Chicago Drama Festival in 1933. The play won first prize at that year's festival, presented as part of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, A Century of Progress Exposition.
Shaina Taub is an American singer, composer and musician.
Darko Tresnjak is a director of plays, musicals, and opera, and winner of several awards, including the Tony Award. He was the artistic director of the Hartford Stage in Connecticut, United States.
Stephen Brown-Fried is an American Stage Director. He is primarily known for his work on New York and regional stages. He currently serves as the chair of the New School of Drama's Directing program. Additionally, he is a lecturer at the Yale School of Drama. He is the Associate Director at the Off-Broadway Non-Profit Gingold Theatrical Group.
Miami New Drama is a nonprofit professional theater company located in Miami Beach, Florida, founded in 2014. Since October 2016 it has been the resident theater company and operator of the historic Colony Theatre on Miami Beach. Since its first production in January 2016, the company has produced work by American, Latin American, and international theater artists.
Saheem Ali is a Kenyan theatre director. He is Associate Artistic Director at The Public Theater in New York City.