Alvin Epstein

Alvin Epstein is a former artistic director of the Guthrie Theater and associate director of Robert Brustein's Yale Repertory Theatre. He has directed over twenty productions (five at the American Repertory Theater, including the inaugural A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1980) and performed in over one hundred (over fifty at the A.R.T.). His A.R.T. roles include Old Man in Lysistrata, the Herald in Marat/Sade, Dionisio Genoni in Enrico IV, John of Gaunt/First Gardener in Richard II, Erich Honecker in Full Circle, McLeavy in Loot, Shabelsky in Ivanov, and Lee Strasberg in Nobody Dies on Friday; Mr. Epstein has also appeared in The Doctor's Dilemma, Antigone, Three Farces and a Funeral, The Winter's Tale, Charlie in the House of Rue, The Merchant of Venice, In the Jungle of Cities, The Bacchae, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable), Slaughter City, Tartuffe, The Tempest, Beckett Trio, The Threepenny Opera, and Waiting for Godot, among many others. His twenty Broadway and off-Broadway productions include his debut with Marcel Marceau, the Fool in Orson Welles's King Lear, Lucky in the American premiere of Waiting for Godot, Clov in the American premiere of Endgame, Peachum in The Threepenny Opera (co-starring with Sting), and the world premiere of Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin's When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable). For twenty years he and Martha Schlamme performed A Kurt Weill Cabaret on tour in the U.S. and South America and a year's run on Broadway. He has performed at many resident theaters throughout the U.S., in films and on television. Awards include Most Promising Actor ('56 Variety Poll), Brandeis Creative Arts Award ('66), Obie for Dynamite Tonight! ('68), Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence ('96), and the IRNE Award for Best Supporting Actor as Shabelsky in Ivanov ('99). Mr. Epstein teaches acting at the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.

PAST PERFORMANCES

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• A Touch of the Poet
• Antigone
• Beckett Trio: Eh Joe, Ghost Trio, Nacht und Träume
• Black Snow
• Boys from Syracuse
• Charlie in the House of Rue
• Dream of the Red Spider
• Enrico IV
• Full Circle
• Ghosts
• Hamlet
• Hedda Gabler
• Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2
• Henry V
• In the Jungle of Cities
• Ivanov
• King Lear
• Loot
• Lysistrata
• Marat/Sade
• Mastergate
• Media Amok
• Misalliance
• Nobody Dies on Friday
• Once in a Lifetime
• Paradise Lost
• Platonov
• Richard II
• Right You Are (If You Think You Are)
• Silence, Cunning, Exile
• Slaughter City
• The Bacchae
• The Berlin Requiem and The Seven Deadly Sins
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• The Cherry Orchard
• The Doctor's Dilemma
• The Good Woman of Setzuan
• The Marriage of Figaro
• The Merchant of Venice
• The Miser (1989)
• The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides
• The School for Scandal
• The Servant of Two Masters
• The Tempest
• The Threepenny Opera
• The Winter's Tale
• Three Farces & A Funeral
• Three Sisters (1982)
• Uncle Vanya (1988)
• Waiting for Godot (1983)
• Waiting for Godot (1995)
• What the Butler Saw
• When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable)
• When We Dead Awaken