Theater Faculty
Rick
Davis is Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he also serves as co-Artistic Director of Theater of the First Amendment (TFA) and Professor of Theater, teaching courses in directing, dramatic literature, and theater history. Under his leadership, TFA has originated work that has contributed to the American repertory through subsequent production, publication, and NPR and PBS broadcast. TFA has been nominated for more than thirty Helen Hayes Awards, winning twelve to date including Outstanding Resident Production and Best New Play.
Rick has directed widely in the professional theater and opera worlds, at such venues as Center Stage, the Kennedy Center, Unseam’d Shakespeare, Delaware Theatre Company, Players Theatre Columbus, American Ibsen Theater, Opera Idaho, Lake George Opera, the IN Series, and many others, as well as directing dozens of productions in college and university theaters. For six years he was also Artistic Director of Mason’s Center for the Arts, including its Great Performances at Mason series, presenting a 40+ event season of distinguished artists and ensembles from around the world.
His work as a translator of Calderón de la Barca includes The Phantom Lady, The Great Theatre of the World, The Constant Prince, and Life is a Dream, all of which have been produced in university or professional theaters. The collection, entitled Calderón: Four Great Plays of the Golden Age was published in 2009 by Smith and Kraus. He was a panelist at the 2010 Out of the Wings symposium on Spanish Golden Age drama, held at Oxford University. His paper, “Calderón Beyond the Dream: thoughts on text and production for a new Golden Age,” led off the conference.
He also has co-translated (with Brian Johnston) five plays of Henrik Ibsen which have been produced at leading regional theaters such as The Shakespeare Theatre (DC), Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Center Stage, the Alliance Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and others, as well as by many colleges and universities, and are published in the “Great Translations for Actors” series by Smith and Kraus.
He has recently contributed several entries to the Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama,a longer overview article to the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World, and an essay for Global Studies Review.
He is the librettist for two works with composer Kim D. Sherman: The Songbird and the Eagle premiered in 2006 by the San José Chamber Orchestra, and Love’s Comedy, an opera based on the early Ibsen play, premiered by the Mason Festival of the Arts in 2008.
Rick has worked at Mason since 1991. Prior to that he was Resident Dramaturg and Associate Artistic Director at Center Stage in Baltimore; on the faculty at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland; lectured at Johns Hopkins and Goucher; and co-founder/Associate Artistic Director of the American Ibsen Theater in Pittsburgh. At Mason he has been honored with the University’s Teaching Excellence Award (1997) and as the Alumni Association Distinguished Faculty Member of the Year (2006). Rick received his B.A. summa cum laude from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and the M.F.A. and D.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama.
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Course List:
THR 150 Drama, Stage, and Society I
THR 151 Drama/Stage/Society II
THR 329 Directing I
THR 352 Dramatic Literature Seminar: Ibsen
THR 440 Advanced Studies in Directing and Dramaturgy
THR 497 Independent Study
THR 599 Advanced Directing
For current syllabi and Theater course listing, click on
Academics
