Arthur Adair

Education & Training: Classical and Post-Modern actor/director training incorporating Stanislavski, Chekhov, and Viewpoints based performance practice philosophies as well as exploration of various world-culture, movement-based, performance techniques, such as, Katha Kali Dance, Suzuki and Butoh. Notable Training: M.F.A., Theatre Directing, CUNY/Brooklyn; B.A., Communication & Creative Arts, SUNY/Old Westbury.

As Director/Playwright/Designer: known for original, musically-charged works of “total theatre”, including Manifest the Whale, the Teacup Destiny; S-s-s-t-o-n-e-d-d-D: An American Oration; Sound of the Sun; and faithful/illuminating "classically-contemporized" staged adaptations of works such as Sophocles’ Oedipus, Euripides' Bacchae, Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters (translation), Georg Buchner’s Woyzeck, & Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones.

As an Actor: member of the Great Jones Repertory Company and The Modern Theatre of Myth. Notable roles: The Angel Project (Adam), Fragments of a Greek Trilogy (Aegisthus), Bacchae (Dionysus), Othello (Iago), Il Grande Inquisitore (Jesus), Antigone (Kreon), Odyssey (Odysseus), Oedipus Rex (Polynieces), and Seven (Zeus). Notable Directors: Georgia McGill, Andrei Serban, Ellen Stewart, Elizabeth Swados, Deborah Warner. Notable Venues: La MaMa, NYC; Pyramids of Tajin, Mexico; National Theatre, Serbia; Toyama Performing Arts Center, Japan; Campo de Fiori, Italy; Carnuntum Amphitheatre, Austria; Lincoln Center, NYC; Petras Open Air Theatre, Greece; The Sanctuary of Aphrodite, Cyprus.

Leadership and Professional Membership: Stage Directors/Choreographers Society; Actors’ Equity Association; Dramatist Guild of America. Award-winning Set/Light Designer. At La MaMa: Artist-in-Residence (97-07) and present Education Outreach Coordinator for the theatre history series, Coffeehouse Chronicles. As a leader within KCACTF: Coordinator, Student Directing Initiative, Region II; Past Coordinator, Student Directing Initiative, Region IV; awarded the 2011 National Faculty Fellowship in Directing.

Additional Information: Professor Adair was born in Queens. He now resides in Long Beach, NY with his wife Liz, and their daughter Payton. He is a proud member of the QCC faculty, since 2007.

“The technique of any art is sometimes apt to dampen, as it were, the spark of inspiration in a mediocre artist; but the same technique in the hands of a master can fan that spark into an unquenchable flame.” - Josef Jasser