Restless Spirits

Over three decades, Allan Havis has had his plays produced at theatres across the country and in Europe, including San Diego Rep, Old Globe, Seattle's ACT, Odyssey, Long Wharf, South Coast Rep, American Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage, Virginia Stage, WPA, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Trapdoor Theatre, Coral Gable's New Theatre, Interact Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Co. and Rowholt Theater-Verlag (National German Radio). Works commissioned by England's Chichester Festival, Sundance, San Diego Rep, Ted Danson's Anasazi Productions, South Coast Rep, Mixed Blood, CSC Rep, Malashock Dance, Carolina Chamber Chorale, National Foundation for Jewish Culture, San Diego City Opera and University of California, San Diego. Nineteen published full-length plays including his signature drama MOROCCO: Penguin/Mentor, Theatre Communications Group, Smith & Kraus, Applause Books, and Broadway Play Publishing. Harper/Collins published his young adult novel Albert the Astronomer in 1979. His sequel novel Albert Down a Wormhole was published by Goodreads Press in 2019. His book on ninety years of cinema, Cult Films: Taboo & Transgression, was published by University Press of America. In collaboration with composer Anthony Davis, his play LILITH was re-imagined as a chamber opera, premiering at UC San Diego's Conrad Prebys Music Center December 2009. His next collaboration with Mr. Davis was Lear on the 2nd Floor, which premiered as a work-in-process March 2012 at Princeton University, and a full-length piece at UC San Diego's Conrad Prebys Music Center March 2013. Both operas can be viewed online at UCSD TV. His third opera, St. Francis de Los Barrios, was presented in showcase at the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego in 2015. His latest opera project, The Golem of La Jolla, in collaboration with composer Michael Roth, will have a concert presentation October 2019 in La Jolla Playhouse's WoW Festival. Recipient of Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Kennedy Center/American Express, CBS, HBO, National Endowment for the Arts Awards, San Diego Theatre Critics Circle 2003 Outstanding New Play for NUEVO CALIFORNIA (co-author Bernardo Solano) and San Diego's 2008 Patté Best Play award for THE TUTOR. University of Illinois Press published in 2001 his edited volume: American Political Plays. Southern Illinois University Press published in 2010 his second edited volume American Political Plays Post 9/11. In 2019 London's Bloomsbury/Methuen published his third volume American Political Plays in the Age of Terrorism. He was Provost of Thurgood Marshall College/UC San Diego for ten years, has headed the MFA playwriting program at University of California, San Diego and continues to teach in their graduate writing program over thirty years where he serves as Chair of Theatre and Dance. He holds an MFA from Yale Drama School.