THE OPEN
GATE, by David Willinger
March 22 – April 2
Thursdays – Saturdays at 8PM AND
Sundays
at 3PM
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue (between 9th & 10th)
New
York, New York
(212)
254-1109
David Willinger was born and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. After attending the High School of Music and Art, he went to Lehman College and received his Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center in Theatre. He also studied acting at HB Studio with William Hickey, at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, and with Joseph Chaikin and Meredith Monk. He has been involved in theatre since the age of 10, and acted at such theatres as the Mahopac Playhouse, the Provincetown Playhouse, Theatre East, the Dorset Playhouse, and the Mercer Arts Center. At the age of 23, he changed focus and became a director and playwright.
Willinger has directed over 40 professional productions, among them classics by such playwrights as Molière, Strindberg, Beckett, Ghelderode, Turgenev, and John Ford. He has also directed plays by such distinguished living playwrights as Eduardo Machado (Don Juan in NYC), Adrienne Kennedy (Solo Voyages and Diary of Lights), and Jean-Claude Van Itallie (his adaptation of Master and Margarita). His own works include the celebrated Andrea’s Got Two Boyfriends (about his own sister, who is retarded), which he first directed at LaMama ETC in New York, and which was subsequently produced in Los Angeles, San Francisco, the Yale Cabaret, and many other locales; his adaptation of Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Malcolm’s Time, Friday Diego, and Caprichos.
His most recent productions are his own adaptation of Paul Willems’ The Wound and The Trail of Tears: A Drama from the Historical Record, which he wrote with his wife, Peggie Dean. The Open Gate, based on Isaac Bashevis Singer’s The Manor, is his first musical to be produced, although he has also written one based on Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge and an opera based on Hugo Claus's The Life and Works of Leopold II.
Professor Willinger has been teaching since the age of 20, and is committed to being a teacher above all his other activities. He has been teaching at City College for 20 years, concurrently on the faculty of the Theatre Program at the CUNY Graduate Center for 14 years, and has been Director of the CCNY Theatre Program for the past 6 years. He has directed at least one play a year at City College, most recently well-received versions of the musicals The Wiz and Little Shop of Horrors. Of all his accomplishments at City College, he is most proud of a global reform of the theatre curriculum and the creation of the two studio theatres in Compton-Goethals.
In addition to this creative work, he has written numerous articles for professional journals and translated over 50 plays from French and Dutch. His 1987 book, Theatrical Gestures from Belgian Modernism is slated to be republished in a revamped version later this year. Of his many awards, he is most proud of the coveted Prize for the Dissemination of Belgian Literature, bestowed by the Belgian Service des Lettres.