Ellen W. Kaplan (Playwright) is Smith College Professor Emerita of Theatre, a Fulbright Scholar in Costa Rica, Fulbright Senior Specialist in Pakistan, Romania and Hong Kong, an actor, director, and playwright. She performs, directs, and teaches internationally, most recently in Portugal, Coimbra University. She has been guest professor at Tel Aviv University; Hong Kong University; the Chinese University of Hong Kong; University of Costa Rica; and the University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest, Romania. During the pandemic, she taught virtual classes at Rojava University in Syria, and at the University of Kurdistan. Recent directing credits: Noel Coward’s Private Lives at Hedgerow Theatre; Turn of the Screw; Lungs; The Tattooed Man; and a radio production of The Foxfinder for Silverthorne Theatre; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time at Smith College; a virtual production of Julius Caesar; and The Magic Flute for the University of Massachusetts Amherst Opera Workshop. Kaplan works extensively with underserved communities and at-risk groups. Published work includes book chapters: “Cry Without an Echo,” on creativity and trauma, in Performing Psychologies (Methuen, 2019); “Directing Wilderness” in China (translated into Chinese); a chapter in Spanish about Argentinian playwright Nora Glickman; Theatre and Literacy; Teaching the Israel-Palestine Conflict, ed. Rachel Harris. and an essay about Jewish American theatre published in “Imagined Israel” (2023). Her books include Images of Mental Illness; and forthcoming, Chasing the Demons: Theatre Responds to Social Trauma, (Routledge).
Yvonne David (Literary Author/Co-Producer) is an award-winning author and a producer. Her diploma qualifications from the Language Tuition Centre in London, England, included Interpreter/Translator in French and English. After moving to Florida, she earned a degree in English and Organizational Communication from Rollins College, Winter Park, and graduated summa cum laude. Her publishing career began with writing newspaper and magazine articles, many of which reached global markets, and continued with the first of four historical fiction books. Out of the Apple Orchard, illustrated by Lyn Rodden, book 1 in the Apple Tree Series is set in the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York, a series inspired by her son, while also paying homage to immigrants in New York. She has spoken at schools, conferences, and libraries in Florida and New York. “Out of the Apple Orchard” won an Independent Publisher Book Award, which Ellen W. Kaplan adapted to the stage. Following the success of the concert readings of the play in New York City by Nicole Raphael, Artistic Director of The Mesaper Theatre, and in Orlando, Florida, by Yvonne David of Eden Grove at the Orlando Shakespeare Center, Yvonne produced the World Premiere at the Orlando Repertory Theatre under the direction of Tony Award-Winning Producer, Kenny Howard. Book 2, “The Night Sky Lined with Silver” by Yvonne David and illustrated by Robert Sauber, will be released in the fall of 2023. She has also completed her first women’s fiction manuscript set in Paris and London. Yvonne is a co-producer of this Off-Broadway production of Out of the Apple Orchard. She is beyond grateful to her husband, who encouraged her to pursue writing, and her son, who inspired Out of the Apple Orchard and the Apple Tree Series. She loves them to the moon and back a million times.
