Members
John Gould Rubin: Artistic DirectoR
ph: Hunter Canning
John Gould Rubin (he/him) is a founding member of The Private Theatre for which he currently serves as Artistic Director and with which he will direct two shows next season: Royston Coppenger’s new translation of A Doll House and Rocco, Chelsea, Adriana, Sean, Claudia, Gianna and Alex, a devised project he’s been developing for seven years on the political polarization of America as seen through the Consciousness of Conflict-Insight theories of Bernard Lonergan. Also, for The Private Theatre he directed a radically explicit deconstruction of Strindberg’s one-act Playing with Fire, staged at The Box (the notoriously sexual night club) and the 2010 site-specific production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler staged in a 19th c townhouse for 25 people per night. He recently remounted Turn Me Loose, at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and earlier at the Wallis Annenberg Theater Center in LA, a dramatization of the comedy, activism and life of Dick Gregory with Joe Morton starring as the legendary black comedian/Activist, which he premiered off-B’way (and for which Mr. Rubin was a finalist for the Joe Calloway Award from the SDC for Best Direction of 2016.) Turn Me Loose, which Mr. Rubin conceived, developed, produced and directed will return to New York for it’s Broadway debut in 2019. Other recent projects include American Buffalo with Treat Williams and Stephen Adly Guirgis and Outside Mullingar with Michael Hayden and Mary Bacon both for the Dorset Theatre Festival, the premiere of Michael Ricigliano’s Queen For A Day with David Proval and Vinnie Pastore off-Broadway and an environmental production of The Cherry Orchard for The Actors Studio with Ellen Burstyn in which he surrounded the audience with the action of the play. Mr. Rubin directed I, Peer, a re-imagining of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, which he presented at the International Ibsen Festival at The National Theatre of Norway and developed at The Old Vic in London; John served as Co-Artistic (with John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Executive Director of LAByrinth Theater Company, for which he directed the premieres of Philip Roth in Khartoum and Penalties & Interest (both as part of Public/LAB at The Public Theater); STopless; The Trail of Her Inner Thigh by Erin Cressida Wilson; John Patrick Shanley's A Winter Party; and co-created and directed two devised pieces: Dreaming in Tongues; and Mémoire. Other projects co-created or directed include The Erotica Project at The Public Theatre; Trial By Water by Qui Nguyen for Ma-Yi; Blood in the Sink at Urban Stages; both A Matter Of Choice and NAMI for Partial Comfort; Pericles, Censored on Final Approach, Six Passionate Women by Mario Fratti, The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute, The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, Maria Irene Fornés’ Fefu and her Friends, David Gow’s Relative Good, Kindertransport, Arabian Nights, Rinne Groff’s The Ruby Sunrise, Dark of the Moon, Rebecca Gilman’s The Land of Little Horses; Frank McGuiness’ Factory Girls; Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Three Birds Alighting on a Field, Ivanov, The Crucible, Richard Nelson’s Franny’s Way, David Mamet’s Boston Marriage, Picnic, Israel Horvitz’ North Shore Fish, Reza de Wet’s Three Sisters, Two and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead for the Stella Adler Conservatory; a radical Hamlet with 7 Hamlets for Columbia’s MFA Program, and he has directed for both EST’s and Naked Angel’s Marathons. He recently directed an environmental production of Mother Courage for The Harold Clurman Lab which also produced his two-theater production of “The Seagull,” and he directed a multi-media, stage adaptation of Double Indemnity with Michael Hayden for The Old Globe in San Diego; Riding the Midnight Express, Billy Hayes’ personal tale of imprisonment and escape in Turkey (memorialized in the film Midnight Express) at the Edinburgh Festival, off-Broadway and at the Soho Theater in London; the Off-Broadway production of The Fartiste, a musical he also premiered for The Private Theatre in 2006 at the New York International Fringe Festival (winner of Outstanding Musical award); Jack's Back, a new musical about Jack the Ripper; Open Marriage (a site-specific, one-woman show about Elsie Clews Parsons at Ventfort Hall, in Lenox, Mass., in co-production with Shakespeare & Co.); Little Doc at Rattlestick, The Importance of Being Ernest for Twin Tiers Theatre; and In the Daylight at the McGinn-Cazale. He wrote (and played Ivan Boesky in) The Predators' Ball (collaborating with Karole Armitage and David Salle) for the Teatro Comunale in Florence, Italy, and at BAM's Next Wave Festival. Mr. Rubin also directed the film, Almost Home, for Trigger Street Independent, which was presented at The Berkshire Film Festival.
Musa Gurnis: Associate Artistic Director
ph: Brian Ziegler
Dr. Musa Gurnis (PhD Columbia) is a theater scholar and practitioner. She is the author of Mixed Faith and Shared Feeling: Theater in Post-Reformation London (U Penn/Folger), and co-editor of Publicity and the Early Modern Stage (Palgrave). She has dramaturged for Bedlam Theatre (NY), Red Bull (NY), Brave Spirits (DC), LABrynth (NY), and the Abbey National Theatre (Dublin). She co-wrote, with Eric Tucker, the award-winning Shakespeare mash-up web series BEDLAM. She has studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Red Bull Theater, and HB Studios; and performs both regionally and in New York (SAG-AFTRA/AEA). She created Red Bull’s Early Modern Scene Work Collaborative, bringing together early modern theater scholars and classical practitioners for rehearsal room research. Her directing credits include benefit readings of Daria Kolomiec’s documentary theater project Diary of War, sharing first-hand accounts of the full-scale invasion from Ukrainians of all walks of life in aid of Hospitallers, a volunteer organization of Ukrainian combat medics; as well as Tatienne Hendricks-Tellefsen’s one-woman apocalyptic anti-rom-com Horny for the End of the World. She was the associate director of the Private Theatre’s 2024/5 production of Roysten Coppenger’s translation of Ibsen’s Doll House.
Tatienne Hendricks-Tellefsen: Executive Director
Ph: Jess Osber
Tatienne Hendricks-Tellefsen, is an actor, writer and filmmaker, born and raised in New York City. She studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and is a graduate of Atlantic Acting School.
Tatienne wrote, produced and starred in her web series, ADULT, which was an official selection at Lower East Side Film Festival and also earned her an invitation to participate in the Tribeca Film Festival's N.O.W. Creators Market. Her one-woman-show that she wrote, produced and starred in, HORNY FOR THE END OF THE WORLD had a sold-out run at Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research. Recent acting credits include: William Shakespeare's ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, David Chase’s THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK, Kevin Vu’s short film, PERFECT AS CATS, the western feature, ALL MEN ARE WICKED, Alex Aguirre's, M3LTD0WN at the Brick Theater. And most recently, Dan Purcell's upcoming short film, OBSERVER AT REST. www.tatienneht.com