Name:
David A. Crespy
Year Graduated/Attendend:
1983 – 1986
Degree:
M.F.A. Playwriting
Favorite Memory of T&D:
I was so grateful for the productions of my original plays at the Laboratory Theatre under the guidance of Webster Smalley — one of the most generous and supportive professors at Texas. In addition, I remember the passion of Professor Oscar Brockett when he taught our theory class-he was so knowledgeable and cared deeply about the theories that he was teaching. I loved taking modern dance with the talented Sharon Vasquez and Yakov Sharir — I was always a closet dancer — but mostly I was grateful for the chance to see my plays produced so regularly at Texas. It was an incredible experience, and influences me as a professor of playwriting myself.
Influential Professors or Classes:
See above.
Current Hometown:
Columbia, Missouri
Current Profession:
Associate Professor of Playwriting and Dramatic Literature, University of Missouri, Department of Theatre
Biography (or what you've done since graduating from UT):
David Crespy is an associate professor of playwriting and founder of the Writing for Performance program for the University of Missouri Department of Theatre. He serves as the artistic director of its Missouri Playwrights Workshop and coordinates its Mizzou New Play Series, Mizzou on Broadway program, and MU Summer Repertory Comedies-in-Concert series. Crespy's plays have been developed and produced at theatres across the US including River Union Stage, NJ Dramatists, Playwrights Theatre of NJ, Nebraska Repertory Theatre, Primary Stages, HB Playwrights Foundation, Austin Melodrama, Jewish Repertory Theatre, Stages St. Louis, First Run Theatre (St. Louis), and Creative Theatre Unlimited. Dr. Crespy is the Region V National Playwriting Program Chair through the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, and has served as chair of the Playwriting Program for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and the Playwrights Symposium of the Mid-America Theatre Conference. His book about New York's off-off Broadway in the 1960s, The Off-Off Broadway Explosion, was published in September 2003 through Back Stage Books (Watson-Guptill Publications), with a foreword by Edward Albee. His plays and essays may be found in Perfect Ten (Gary Garrison, ed., Heinemann), Playwriting Master Class (Michael Wright, ed., Heineman), Monologues for Men by Men (Gary Garrison, Ed., Heinemann), Angels in American Theatre (Robert Schanke, ed., Southern Illinois University Press), and The Influence of Tennessee Williams (Philip Kolin, Ed., McFarland). He is currently working on a new book, He Had to Hock His House: Richard Barr, Edward Albee, and the Playwrights Unit based on the life and writings of Broadway producer, Richard Barr.
