Davis McCallum

Davis McCallum (Director) directed the award-winning New York premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale at Playwrights Horizons (Callaway Award nomination).  Other recent productions include London Wall (Mint Theater Company), Henry IV (Pearl Theatre Company),  Quiara Alegria Hudes’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Water By the Spoonful (Second Stage, Hartford Stage Company), Gabriel Kahane and Seth Bockley’s February House (The Public); Samuel D. Hunter’s A Bright New Boise (Partial Comfort, Drama Desk nomination) and Five Genocides (Clubbed Thumb); Michael Mitnick’s Sex Lives of Our Parents (Second Stage); Gregory S. Moss’s punkplay (Clubbed Thumb); Charles Mee’s Queens Boulevard (Signature Theater); Hudes’s Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue (P73, Pulitzer Prize finalist);  Henry V (New Victory); Jane Eyre, The Tempest and The Turn Of The Screw (The Acting Company). Regional: The Guthrie, The Old Globe, Humana, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Williamstown, Alliance Theater Company, Chautauqua Theater Company, the O’Neill, Playmakers Rep, Two River, New York Stage & Film, others. Other: Drama League Fellowship (2001), Phil Killian Fellowship (2003), NEA/TCG Career Development Program (2007), Boris Sagal Fellowship (2010), Princess Grace Honoree (2011). He has taught directing at Princeton University and the New School for Drama. He trained at LAMDA and studied at Princeton and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He is the Artistic Director of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (www.hvshakespeare.org).

Photo by Zack DeZon

• “RIVETING. An impassioned and arresting clash of minds and emotions. I was glued to the stage. Hensley’s performance is equally dynamic and horrifying.”

  — Rex Reed, NY Observer

• “VIBRANT AND PROVOCATIVE. Hunter explores his material with sharp-eared skill and sensitivity. McCallum's production handles Hunter's text with clarity and devotion, getting uniformly strong performances from his five-person cast.”

  — Michael Feingold, Village Voice | Read Full Article

• “EXTRAORDINARY. As he did in his breakthrough play A Bright New Boise, Hunter has constructed an outsize, gothic scenario in tender miniature, ”

  — Scott Brown, NY Magazine | Read Full Article

• “WONDERFUL. Shuler Hensley gives a startlingly poignant performance. Under Davis McCallum’s sensitive direction, you feel as if you’ve met real people, made of flesh and blood.”

  — Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post | Read Full Article

• “AN AFFECTING NEW DRAMA. There may be no more startling image on a New York stage right now than the one greeting audiences at Playwrights Horizons when the lights go up on The Whale. ”

  — Charles Isherwood, NY Times

• “COMPELLING, FUNNY, AND UNEXPECTEDLY IMPACTFUL. Tony and Olivier Award winner Shuler Hensley is remarkably affecting job as 600-pound Charlie. Directed by Davis McCallum with no holds barred.”

  — Jennifer Farrar, AP | Read Full Article

• “FOUR STARS. A deeply affecting and piercingly amusing play by Samuel D. Hunter. Davis McCallum’s production leaves an emotional wallop in its wake.”

  — Joe Dziemianowicz, Daily News | Read Full Article

• “CRITIC'S PICK. FOUR STARS. Sharp and funny. Hensley is harrowingly good, endowing Charlie with wit and dignity.”

  — David Cote, Time Out NY | Read Full Article

• “Samuel D. Hunter is a highly promising writer worthy of Playwrights Horizons’ typically excellent attention.”

  — Michael Sommers, NJ Newsroom