George Ferencz is an award winning theater director, producer, and teacher who first rose to fame with his productions of Eugene O’Neill’s THE HAIRY APE (1976) and DYNAMO (1976).  He co-founded the Impossible Ragtime Theater in 1975 with Pam Mitchell, Ted Story and Cynthia Crane. 

Ferencz is known for his extensive work with La MaMa Experimental Theater Club where he was a resident director from 1982.  He has directed 19 Sam Shepard productions including SHEP’N’REP (The Tooth of Crime, Cowboy Mouth, Mad Dog Blues, Killer’s Head Melodrama Play) (1979), COWBOY MOUTH IN CONCERT (Shepard/Patti Smith; 1981), THE TOOTH OF CRIME (1983, 2006), and SHEPARD SETS (Angel City, Suicide in B Flat, Black Bog Beast Bait) (1984); the latter began Ferencz’s collaborative partnership with drummer/composer Max Roach.  Ferencz’s other Off-and Off-Off-Broadway credits include THE NEW LIVING NEWSPAPER (1979), PARIS LIGHTS(Book by Michael Zettler, William Russo composer; 1980), BATTERY (Daniel Therriault; 1981), MONEY: A JAZZ OPERA (Book by Amiri Baraka, George Gruntz composer; 1982), HARM’S WAY (Mac Wellman; 1985), WELCOME BACK TO SALAMANCA (Migdalia Cruz; 1988), CONJUR  WOMAN (Beatrice Manley; 1983, 2008), and PRAGUE, 1912 (Lu Hauser; 2017). 

Ferencz grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, the eldest of six siblings.  Ferencz was first introduced to theater when his mother took him to see a touring company of Man of La Mancha.  Wanting to pursue a career as a writer, he became editor of his high school newspaper in his sophomore year.  The first in his family to graduate from college, Ferencz got his degree in theatre from Kent State University.  He moved to  New York in 1970 and began studying directing with Gene Frankel and then with Carl Weber.  He has worked extensively in regional theaters, including San Diego Rep, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, The Cleveland Playhouse, Syracuse Stage.  A few of Ferencz’s international credits include ANNA O’S PRIVATE THEATRE (Oxford, England, 1984), PERCUSSION SUMMIT featuring Max Roach, Ginger Baker, and Tony Williams (Verona, Italy, 1995), THE LADY AOI (Munich, Germany, 2000), and COWBOY MOUTH IN CONCERT (German Tour, 1980).  Ferencz founded the Hispanic-American Music Theatre Lab at INTAR Theatre with musical director Tito Puente.  Ferencz has taught directing at Columbia University, Yale, and NYU.  He created and helmed EXPERIMENTS, the reading and new play development series at La Mama ETC from 1998-2014.  He directed a festival of new plays for Experiments’ 10^thAnniversary called EXPERIMENTA! (The Warzone is My Bed, Yasmine Rana; Auditioning Angels, Pieter-Dyrk Uys; TentagatneT, Peter Dizozza; Waiting for Mert, Michael Zettler; Plains, Stacia Saint Owens; Schrodinger’s Cat, Stan Kaplan) (2007).  Ferencz founded the performance group The Experimentals in 2010 out of a core group of actors from Experimental, including John Andrew Morrison, Jason Howard, and Jenn Vath.