Crawford
met Kermit Christman in 1990, and became a founding company member
of the incorporated Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival's premiere
season. Appointed Associate Artist and Director in 1992, Crawford
developed and directed Shakes-shorts, a lecture and performance
series of Shakespeare'sAS YOU LIKE IT that toured
to Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade Schools. As a director for PBSF's
main stage productions, he has collaborated with Christman for
Samuel Beckett'sPLAY, CARDENIO (THE LADY'S TRAGEDY),
TWELFTH NIGHT, and AS YOU LIKE IT.Crawford
and Daniel Gordon have co-directed together THE TAMING OF
THE SHREW, THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, and HAMLET; and for
PBSF's last three seasons he has shared directing chores with
Paul Prescott on OTHELLO, THE MERRY WIVES OF
WINDSOR, and JULIUS CAESAR. Crawford's non-collaborative
directing efforts for PBSF include MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING,
THE WINTER'S TALE, and PERICLES.
On stage for PBSF, Crawford's Shakespearean roles have been
wide-ranging: Pericles, Brutus, Falstaff, Othello, Hamlet, Benedick, Leontes,
Macbeth, Mercutio, Touchstone, Petruccio, the Dromios of Syracuse
and Ephesus, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Romeo, Orlando, Duke of Clarence,
Lysander, Ferdinand, and Sebastian. He starred in three PBSF
world premieres-as the title character in EDGAR: THE LIFE
OF E.A. POE, as early Florida explorer Jonathan Dickinson
in THE VANISHED PEOPLE, and as the murderous Lonely One
in the musical adaptation of Ray Bradbury's DANDELION WINE
(dramatizations of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles -Rocket
Summer and Pillar of Fire- were also early PBSF projects
which he led on stage). In 2003, he starred with Prescott in
London's long-running thriller THE WOMAN IN BLACK, a PBSF
special engagement that the Palm Beach Post admired for
its "top-notch performances" from a pair of "tireless,
versatile actors."
Elsewhere
on the Shakespearean stage, Crawford has been seen at the Georgia
Shakespeare Festival, where as a visiting guest artist for its
2001 Thomas Middleton Season and Symposium he performed as Vindice
in THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY, Ricardo in THE WIDOW,
and Penitent Brothel in A MAD WORLD, MY MASTERS. For the
Shakespeare Institute Players, who make their theatrical home
at The Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, he directed
and performed in THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, a production the
Stratford Herald praised as "brilliant," "hilarious,"
and comparable to the work of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Crawford also has an extensive stage history with PBSF's sponsoring
collegiate institution, the Eissey Campus of Palm Beach Community
College. For its resident theatre department, Northstage, he
has directed his own adaptation of MEDEA and A MIDSUMMER'S
NIGHT DREAM and has performed as Lord Byron in BLOODY
POETRY, Prospero in THE TEMPEST, the Choragos
in OEDIPUS REX, and Orsino in TWELFTH NIGHT.
Crawford suggests that his theatrical work is “technically only a hobby,” and is in fact an academic by profession. He holds a BA and MA in English and Renaissance Drama from Florida Atlantic University, and completed his PhD studies in 2005 at the Hudson Strode Program for Renaissance Studies at the University of Alabama, directed by the controversial Shakespearean editor and scholar Gary Taylor. After teaching at UA for seven years, Crawford is now Professor of English and Theatre at Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia. His publications have addressed racism in TITUS ANDRONICUS, necrophilia and masculinity in Thomas Middleton’s THE LADY'S TRAGEDY, the difficulties and joys of producing outdoor Shakespeare in south Florida, and the grotesque in THE WINTER'S TALE; book and performance reviews have appeared in Shakespeare Yearbook and Shakespeare Bulletin. He has been invited to present his research at the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America, the James Edwin Savage Lecture and Symposium in the Renaissance at the University of Mississippi, the Conference of the Group for Early Modern Culture Studies, and, for many years, the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, where he has discussed Shakespeare on stage, Shakespearean film adaptations, Byron, and Marlowe.
Crawford
met Kermit Christman in 1990, and became a founding company member
of the incorporated Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival's premiere
season. Appointed Associate Artist and Director in 1992, Crawford
developed and directed Shakes-shorts, a lecture and performance
series of Shakespeare's AS YOU LIKE IT that toured
to Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade Schools. As a director for PBSF's
main stage productions, he has collaborated with Christman for
Samuel Beckett's PLAY, CARDENIO (THE LADY'S TRAGEDY),
TWELFTH NIGHT, and AS YOU LIKE IT. Crawford
and Daniel Gordon have co-directed together THE TAMING OF
THE SHREW, THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, and HAMLET; and for
PBSF's last three seasons he has shared directing chores with
Paul Prescott on OTHELLO, THE MERRY WIVES OF
WINDSOR, and JULIUS CAESAR. Crawford's non-collaborative
directing efforts for PBSF include MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING,
THE WINTER'S TALE, and PERICLES.
On stage for PBSF, Crawford's Shakespearean roles have been
wide-ranging: Pericles, Brutus, Falstaff, Othello, Hamlet, Benedick, Leontes,
Macbeth, Mercutio, Touchstone, Petruccio, the Dromios of Syracuse
and Ephesus, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Romeo, Orlando, Duke of Clarence,
Lysander, Ferdinand, and Sebastian. He starred in three PBSF
world premieres-as the title character in EDGAR: THE LIFE
OF E.A. POE, as early Florida explorer Jonathan Dickinson
in THE VANISHED PEOPLE, and as the murderous Lonely One
in the musical adaptation of Ray Bradbury's DANDELION WINE
(dramatizations of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles -Rocket
Summer and Pillar of Fire- were also early PBSF projects
which he led on stage). In 2003, he starred with Prescott in
London's long-running thriller THE WOMAN IN BLACK, a PBSF
special engagement that the Palm Beach Post admired for
its "top-notch performances" from a pair of "tireless,
versatile actors."
Elsewhere
on the Shakespearean stage, Crawford has been seen at the Georgia
Shakespeare Festival, where as a visiting guest artist for its
2001 Thomas Middleton Season and Symposium he performed as Vindice
in THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY, Ricardo in THE WIDOW,
and Penitent Brothel in A MAD WORLD, MY MASTERS. For the
Shakespeare Institute Players, who make their theatrical home
at The Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, he directed
and performed in THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, a production the
Stratford Herald praised as "brilliant," "hilarious,"
and comparable to the work of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Crawford also has an extensive stage history with PBSF's sponsoring
collegiate institution, the Eissey Campus of Palm Beach Community
College. For its resident theatre department, Northstage, he
has directed his own adaptation of MEDEA and A MIDSUMMER'S
NIGHT DREAM and has performed as Lord Byron in BLOODY
POETRY, Prospero in THE TEMPEST, the Choragos
in OEDIPUS REX, and Orsino in TWELFTH NIGHT.
Crawford suggests that his theatrical work is “technically only a hobby,” and is in fact an academic by profession. He holds a BA and MA in English and Renaissance Drama from Florida Atlantic University, and completed his PhD studies in 2005 at the Hudson Strode Program for Renaissance Studies at the University of Alabama, directed by the controversial Shakespearean editor and scholar Gary Taylor. After teaching at UA for seven years, Crawford is now Professor of English and Theatre at Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia. His publications have addressed racism in TITUS ANDRONICUS, necrophilia and masculinity in Thomas Middleton’s THE LADY'S TRAGEDY, the difficulties and joys of producing outdoor Shakespeare in south Florida, and the grotesque in THE WINTER'S TALE; book and performance reviews have appeared in Shakespeare Yearbook and Shakespeare Bulletin. He has been invited to present his research at the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America, the James Edwin Savage Lecture and Symposium in the Renaissance at the University of Mississippi, the Conference of the Group for Early Modern Culture Studies, and, for many years, the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, where he has discussed Shakespeare on stage, Shakespearean film adaptations, Byron, and Marlowe.