| Wikipedia: David Shepherd (producer) |
David Shepherd (1924 -) is an American producer, director, and actor primarily noted for his work in improvisational theatre
Contents |
Career
Born in New York City to an old money family, Shepherd grew up with left-leaning sensibilities. He studied English at Harvard and received an M.A. in the History of Theater at Columbia. Disenchanted with what he perceived as a European dominated theater on the East Coast, Shepherd gravitated to the Midwest.[1]
I wanted to rejuvenate the theater. My first love was the theater, which I found had been captured by Giraudoux and Shaw and Ionesco, who would come in and turn it into a distorted picture of life. Instead of being about what's happening in the streets of Chicago, it was about love affairs in Nice which took place fifty years ago. And I thought it was obscene for the theater to be dominated by French and English people. I mean, obscene. I mean, I'm a Yankee. I'm a W.A.S.P.. I want a W.A.S.P. theater, OK? And you can't get it on the East Coast because it's dominated by European culture. So you go to the Midwest, which is what I did.
– David Shepherd, Something Wonderful Right Away
In 1953 Shepherd was one of the co-founders of the Playwrights Theatre Club in Chicago. In 1955 he founded the Compass Players, the forerunner of The Second City. More recently he has been a co-creator of the Canadian Improv Games. In addition to leading workshops in Improvisation, David Shepherd has recently been involved in developing techniques for the creation of improvisational films with his partner, Nancy Fletcher. David has written a book entitled, That Movie in Your Head, about the process of improvised movie making. David resides near Amherst, MA.
Compass launched the careers of artists such as Jerry Stiller, Mike Nichols, Alan Alda, Elaine May, Barbara Harris, Alan Arkin and Shelley Berman. David's commitment to a theatre for the masses paved the way for companies such as The Premise, The Committee and Chicago City Limits and strongly influenced Saturday Night Live, SCTV and MadTV.
In 1972, David formed Group Creativity Projects, a non-profit organization that enables amateurs and professionals to improvise their own plays, movies, radio shows, poetry and novellas. Along with Howard Jerome in 1973, David designed and produced Improv Olympix - a performance sport which premiered at the Space For Innovative Development in New York City and later spawned a city-wide competition in Chicago during the early 1980s, launching yet another generation of improvisers such as John Cusack and Jeremy Piven. Improv Olympix was eventually adapted in Ottawa as the Canadian Improv Games. Now in its 31st year, the Canadian Improv Games is part of the curriculum of 300 Canadian high schools and is the subject of the documentary "In The Moment" which features interviews with David and alumni Sandra Oh.
Since the inception of Group Creativity Projects, David has invented over nine other improv formats including Video Scape (audience chooses an image and audio to propel their stories), Responsive Scene Radio Show (allowing listeners to phone in scenes and participate as performers and directors with the in-studio actors), Poetry Games (with amateurs and professionals in real locations, such as Washington Square Park) and Improv Movies (combining improv techniques to make movies).
David is on the Board of Directors for ACT NOW, a non-profit organization that builds confidence in young women through improvised video movie making. He continues to lead improv workshops throughout North America: Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, the Hamptons, New York City, Boston and Western Massachusetts where he lives. Most recently, David was presented with lifetime achievement awards by Second City, Canadian Improv Games and Chicago Improv Fest.
His website is http://www.groupcreativityproject.com
On YouTube there are a series of installments of a work-in-progress documentary on Compass.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Compass+from+Studio207tv&search_type=&aq=o
References
- ^ Sweet, Jeffrey Something Wonderful Right Away: An Oral History of the Second City and The Compass Players, 2004, page 2
Bibliography
- Shepherd, David (2005). That Movie in Your Head: Guide to improvising stories on video. Shutesbury, MA: Gere Publishing. pp. 202 pages. ISBN 0-9743995-0-7.
Further reading
- Coleman, Janet (1991). The Compass: The Improvisational Theatre that Revolutionized American Comedy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 362 pages. ISBN 978-0226113456.
- Sweet, Jeffrey (2004). Something Wonderful Right Away: An Oral History of the Second City and The Compass Players. Limelight Editions. pp. 386 pages. ISBN 978-0879100735.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
