Dakin Matthews
Dakin Matthews is Artistic Director of Andak Stage Company, former Artistic Director of California Actors Theatre, Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, and the Antaeus Company, and an Emeritus Professor of English from Cal State, East Bay. He has completed verse translations of six seventeenth-century Spanish comedies, four of which have had professional, award-winning productions. He is also an actor, director, playwright, dramaturge, teacher, and Shakespeare scholar. As an actor for such companies as ACT in San Francisco, the Old Globe in San Diego, the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, South Coast Repertory Theatre, and numerous summer Festivals, he has specialized in Shakespearean roles, including recently Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare Center of L.A.), King Lear for the Antaeus Company, Antigonus in The Winter's Tale (Bridge Company World Tour), and Warwick and Glendower in his own adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV at Lincoln Center Theatre (multiple Tony Awards), receiving a Drama Desk award for the adaptation and a Bayfield Award for his performance. He is a member of both the Motion Picture and Television Academies, and has appeared in over twenty-five films (including True Grit, 2010) and two hundred fifty television shows. He has directed at ACT, Trinity Rep, Denver Center Theatre, San Jose Rep, the Old Globe, California Actors Theatre, Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, and many others. His play Uncommon Players was commissioned and produced at the Old Globe. His comedy The Great Fugue was premiered in ACT's Plays in Progress program. Two more plays, The Savannah Option and A Magic Christmas, have been produced by Andak Stage Company. His most recent verse-drama The Prince of L.A. was produced in Fall, 2005 at the Old Globe. He has dramaturged Shakespeare for Jack O'Brien, John Rando, Darko Tresnjak, and Daniel Sullivan, including the Denzel Washington Julius Caesar on Broadway. His handbook on verse-speaking Shakespeare Spoken Here has been used in universities and training programs throughout California; he has given master classes in Shakespearean acting across the country and around the world and has taught and directed in professional training programs at The Juilliard School, American Conservatory Theatre, Cal Arts, and USD/Old Globe.