Two By Korder: Fun and Nobody

On Broadway, he directed Richard III with Al Pacino, and The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, for which Mr. Pacino won the Tony Award for Best Actor. Regional theatres include the Guthrie Theatre, Alley Theatre, Paper Mill Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, Arizona Theatre Company, Pittsburgh Playhouse, and the Charles de Rochefort Theatre in Paris, where he directed the French premiere of Edward Albee's The Zoo Story.

As the artistic director of the Theatre Company of Boston (TCB) from 1963 to 75, Mr. Wheeler directed over eighty productions.  Among these were ten by Pinter, seven by Brecht, five by Albee, nine by Beckett, two by O'Neill, and numerous works by new writers such as Ed Bullins, Jeffrey Bush, John Hawkes, Adrienne Kennedy, and Sam Shepard.  Through these productions and others, he helped to launch the careers of then-unknown actors including Paul Benedict, Larry Bryggman, John Cazale, Stockard Channing, Blythe Danner, Robert DeNiro, Robert Duvall, Hector Elizondo, Spalding Gray, Paul Guilfoyle, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Jon Voight, Ralph Waite, and James Woods. His film The Local Stigmatic (with Mr. Pacino)—adapted from the play by Heathcote Williams—was presented at the Montreal Film Festival and screened at the Whitney Museum and the MOMA. It will be released in 2006.

Mr. Wheeler's honors include the Elliot Norton Award for his work on Misalliance, the St. Botolph Club Foundation's Award for Distinction in the Performing Arts, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Award. He has taught and directed at Harvard University, Boston University, MIT, Brandeis, Barnard, Colorado College, and Circle-in-the-Square. He has directed student productions at U.N.C. Chapel Hill, U.C. Irvine and Long Beach, and Évora, Portugal. After receiving his masters at Harvard, Mr. Wheeler trained with José Quintero in New York during the great "O'Neill years" of the 1950's.

Costume designer Karen Eister's designs at the American Repertory Theater prior to The Marriage of Bette and Boo include An Evening of Beckett, Beckett Trio, Macbeth; the A.R.T. New Stages productions of Silence, Cunning, Exile, The Lost Boys, Claptrap, Two by Korder, and Mrs. Sorkin Presents … ; and for the A.R.T. New Stages premiere and 1987 mainstage production of The Day Room. Ms. Eister earned her MFA in design at New York University. After several years of freelancing for television, fashion, and theater, she returned to Cambridge, where she has been cutting and draping costumes for the A.R.T.

Recent credits include: 9 Parts of Desire at the Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, A Month In the Country at The Manhattan School of Music, Peter Pucci at the Joyce, Edisa Weeks and Delirious Dance at the Puffin Room, 4 Becket Short Plays at The American Can Factory, The Trojan Women at Juilliard, Pericles at the Culture Project, Black Sheep at Barrington Stage Company (directed by Daniel Fish), and Billy Nijinski, directed by Richard Colton, which won Best Production at the 2002 New York Fringe Festival. Other New York Theater credits include Byrd's Boy at Primary Stages, Up Against the Wind at New York Theatre Workshop and over 20 productions with the Juilliard Drama Division. Regional credits include Uncle Vanya at Playmakers, Side Man at ACT (Seattle), Loves Labours Lost, Cymbeline, and Macbeth at Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Much Ado About Nothing at the California Shakespeare Theatre, and The Country Wife, The Rivals, and Lady Windemere's Fan at the Shakespeare Theatre. He designed the NETworks tour of Kiss of the Spiderwoman in both America and Japan. Other international credits include the Teatro Filharmonico in Verona, Italy, the Artsphere Theater in Tokyo, and Endemol Productions in the Netherlands as well as extensive touring as the Lighting Director of the White Oak Dance Project. (1998-2002). He has collaborated with Amy Spencer and Richard Colton on a variety of projects over the last fifteen years. More information available at www.peterwestdesign.com.