Simon Levy

Since 1993, Simon has been the Producing Director/Dramaturg for the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles. His stage adaptation of The Great Gatsby inaugurated the Guthrie Theater's new $125M theatre complex in July 2006, opened at Seattle Rep in November 2006, and is in preparation for a commercial run in London. His critically-acclaimed production of What I Heard About Iraq (A Cry for 5 Voices), which he adapted and directed, was extended for 5 months at the Fountain Theatre, has been read/produced in 45 cities worldwide, was produced at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it won the Fringe First Award, is currently on a 25-city UK tour, was produced at the 2007 Adelaide Fringe Festival where it won the Advertiser Fringe Award, and has been produced by BBC Radio 4 for broadcast on May 11, 2007. He recently directed Dael Orlandersmith in her one-woman show, The Gimmick, for the Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles Times Critics Choice, September 2006; and remounted his multi-award winning production of Master Class for Santa Barbara Theatre at the Lobero Theatre, January, 2007 where it received rave reviews. He was the producer of the World Premiere of Athol Fugard's new play, Exits and Entrances, which ran for 7 months at the Fountain Theatre, won 3 OVATION Awards and 5 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, including Best Production and World Premiere Play, and opened Off-Broadway at Primary Stages April 2007. His adaptation of Gatsby, the first given exclusive rights by the Fitzgerald Estate in 80 years, completes his Fitzgerald Trilogy of stage adaptations, which includes Tender is the Night (winner of the PEN West Literary Award in Drama, 7 Drama-Logue awards including Best Production and Direction, as well as numerous other awards, and has been published in the Modern American Literature Series, Prestige Books), and The Last Tycoon (winner of 5 Back Stage West/Drama-Logue awards including Best Adaptation and Best Direction, and was nominated for the prestigious Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Ted Schmitt Award for Original Play). He's writing his newest play, A Noble Peace, based on the life of Nobel Laureate, Andrei Sakharov, and a contemporary adaptation of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People (A Modern Version for America) and just finished Sessions with a Dead Poet, about the father of modern Japanese poetry, Hagiwara Sakutaro. His one-act, Pink Skin, was produced at the Bloomington Playwrights Project in Indiana, and at thesideproject in Chicago. His one-act play, She-Who-Is-Made-Of-Clay, among its many awards, is in pre-production as a short film. His one-act play, Vivian on the White Wall, was a finalist for the Heideman Award, Actors Theatre of Louisville. His directing and producing credits are numerous, over 85 productions in Los Angeles and San Francisco that have won more than 150 awards. Some of his other directing credits include: Daisy in the Dreamtime, Going to St. Ives, Night of the Iguana, Summer and Smoke, and Orpheus Descending at The Fountain; Accomplice for the Colony Theatre; Awake and Sing for International City Theatre; the Off-Broadway premiere of James Mellon's Unfinished Song at the Provincetown Playhouse; and award-winning productions at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, including Lynne Kaufman's The Couch. Also in San Francisco he was the Founding Producer of the Playwrights Unit, One Act II, which specialized in new work by local writers; became Artistic Director of the One Act Theatre Company where he produced and directed many award-winning productions; and was general manager of San Francisco's hit revue, Beach Blanket Babylon. He teaches Playwriting at UCLA Extension, is a site evaluator for both the National Endowment for the Arts and California Arts Council, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, the National New Play Network, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, PEN USA, and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, as well as a host of political, environmental, and humanitarian advocacy groups.